A test of charity

CHRIST himself has commanded us that we have to love our

neighbor, that is, everyone, as he himself has loved us. He even went

to the extent to telling us that we have to love our enemies.

  

            This commandment, of course, can be obeyed in many ways.

But one good way to see if our love is as Christ has commanded us is

to see that we make ourselves as lovable as possible to everybody even

as we try our best to love all, including the most unlovable.

            This is how Christ has loved us. For him to be lovable to

us, he being the son of God became man and adapted himself to us all

the way to making himself like sin without committing sin if only to

save us.

  

            For this, he emptied himself just to be close to us and

even to identify himself with us. And as a consequence, he adapted

himself to our ways, teaching the great mysteries of our faith, for

example, in easy-to-understand parables. He also had to pay taxes and

followed the local customs and practices. He was like anybody else,

except committing sin.

  

            Christ personified what St. Paul once described how we

should be—that we be all things to all men for the sake of human

redemption. That was how Christ made himself lovable to everyone, even

if there were some who could not love him.

  

            But even with these people—the Pharisees and the

scribes—he in the end asked his Father for their forgiveness, finding

some excuses for them: “For they know not what they are doing.”

  

            Christ’s love was and continues to be universal in scope.

And it involved everything in his power—from showing basic affection

and compassion to offering forgiveness.

  

            It was a love that was and continues to be gratuitously

given. And that is also the love that he expects us to have since we

are patterned after him. We are meant to be “alter Christus,” another

Christ. “Without cost you have received, without cost you have to

give.” (Mt 10,8)

  

            We have to be ready to have this kind of love in our life.

We need to develop it, of course. To be sure, it would need God’s

grace, first of all, but we also have to do our part in cultivating

the proper attitudes, skills and virtues.

  

            That is why we have to pray and with humility enliven our

faith, hope and charity so that more than obtaining that grace, we

would know how to correspond to that grace that God actually gives us

in abundance and gratuitously. In this, he is not sparing.

  

            While we cannot deny that we are subject to all kinds of

conditionings that would lead us to have preferences and biases, likes

and dislikes, we have to learn how to go beyond those conditionings,

not allowing ourselves to be trapped by them.

  

            For this, we need God’s grace and our all-out effort of

disciplining, purifying and orienting our human powers—intelligence,

will, emotions, memory, etc.—toward God, their proper source and

ultimate object.

  

            Everyday, actually, offers us a lot of opportunities to

develop this Christian love by making ourselves as lovable as possible

to everybody, and by loving every one, including our enemies and the

unlovable.

  

            We have to understand that every event and situation in

our life, no matter how they are considered according to our human and

natural standards, should be an occasion to love God by loving

everybody!

Talking about hell

HELL, of course, is one of the eternal last things,

together with death, judgment and heaven, which we are encouraged to

consider every so often, if only to derive some appropriate

resolutions as to how we ought to live our life here in this world.

  

            The considerations of the so-called last things would give

us a global picture of things that should guide us better in our

choices and decisions. Let’s hope that we understand this point well

and take it to heart and to practice.

  

            With respect to hell, however, we have to understand that

it truly exists in spite of all the goodness and mercy of God. It is

the place, or better said, the eternal state of those who are all-out

against God, their opposition to God not only incidental but formal.

  

            But we need to talk about hell with great delicacy. It is

not meant to scare us, to bully us to behave properly, although some

fear would be good for us. But it should be a fear that is out of love

of God, not simply because of the punishment. We should be driven by

filial fear, not servile fear.

  

            God must have thought of hell when he decided to create.

And that’s simply because there is nothing that exists that was not

thought of by God from all eternity. Otherwise, God would not be God.

Just the same, God decided to create in spite of that possibility

because he also knows that good will in the end triumph. God, in his

own wisdom and ways, will always have the last word.

  

            Hell came to be because of some angels who chose to be by

themselves instead of being with God. Being pure spirits, their choice

is instantaneous and has eternal effects. When they are good by

choosing God, they would really be good always. And when they are bad

by rejecting God, they would really be very bad always. There’s no

state of in-between in them. They are either very good or very bad.

  

            With us, since we are body and soul, our choices are

always conditioned by many factors. In fact, as long as we live, our

final choice, either to be with God or to be by ourselves simply, is

always a work in progress.

  

            The choices that we make in life should always be viewed

in this context of being conditioned. That’s why even if we make a bad

or sinful choice, there is still hope because we can still correct it.

And we should not forget the all-powerful and abiding mercy of God.

Remember St. Paul saying, “Where sin has abounded, God’s mercy has

abounded even more.” (Rom 5,20)

   

            Besides, we really cannot deny the fact that our proneness

to sin is such that it will need only God’s grace to combat it. We do

our part, but we know our efforts would not be enough. St. Paul

dramatized this when he said:

  

            “I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see

in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me

captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man

that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to

God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7,22-25)

   

            Before God, we are like little children who try to behave

well but who cannot avoid bumbling down. The consideration of hell is

not meant simply to scare us, but to encourage us to go always to God.

Giving up and making do

IF we are truly in love, we should be willing to do and

give our best even as we would be willing also to give up things that

are already a hindrance to that love, regardless of whether they

continue to be valuable. We also would know how to make do when

options are limited or when times are bad and not favourable to

loving.

   

            This has been shown by Christ himself. Being God, he

emptied himself to become man and continued to empty himself all the

way to offering his life on the cross for love of us and in obedience

to his Father’s will. (cfr. Phil 2,7)

  

            He lived what he taught. He offered his life to act out

what he said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the

field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all

that he has, and buys that field." (Mt 13,44)

  

            All saints did the same. St. Paul, for example, suffered

the loss of all things and regarded them as rubbish so he could gain

Christ. (cfr Phil 3,8) The apostles, like Peter and Andrew, James and

John, left their nets, their father and everything behind (relictis

omnibus) to follow Christ. (cfr Mt 4,18-22) Matthew left his lucrative

tax collector’s table to follow Christ. (cfr Mt 9,9-13)

  

            It’s when we are unwilling to give up things and make do

with whatever is available that we would fail to love and to follow

Christ. Remember that episode of the rich young man who wanted to be

holy and perfect. Since he was unwilling to detach himself from his

possessions, he could not follow Christ. (Mt 19,16-30)

  

            That episode triggered those now famous words of Christ:

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a

rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt 19,24)

  

            We have to learn how to give up things in order to follow

Christ and to make do with anything during difficult situations if

only to be with Christ. The events of every day actually offer us many

opportunities to learn this requirement of true love.

  

            That we give priority to our prayers in spite of

sacrifices involved and some urgent matters to face is one such

opportunity. That we are willing to be misunderstood and to be

inconvenienced if only to follow what Christ is clearly telling us to

do is another. Ultimately, we have to learn to leave our life here on

earth so we can have our life with God in heaven.

  

            In loving, there will always be choices to be made that

ultimately boil down to whether we choose to be with God, doing his

will, or to be by ourselves, pursuing only our own will.

  

            We should see to it that we make the right choice of

giving priority to God, convinced that with him we would also have

everything else that we need. We should be wary of being deluded by

the deceptive if very attractive arguments of our wounded flesh, the

things of the world and the devil himself.

  

            We should choose God first. He is actually the source of

love, the pattern, purpose and energy of love. Let’s be convinced that

if we are generous with him, he would be much more generous with us.

  

            So we somehow echo some lyrics of a modern love song that

express this sentiment. “I’d rather have bad times with you, than good

times with someone else. I’d rather be beside you in a storm, than

safe and warm by myself. I’d rather have hard times together, than to

it easy apart.” (From the song, “I’d rather,” as sung by Luther

Vandross)

   

            It’s the same sentiment expressed in one of the psalms.

“Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would

rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of

the wicked.” (84,10)