Cultivate hunger for God

THIS is what fasting and abstinence seek to accomplish, practices we

are encouraged to do during the season of Lent. It is to deprive

ourselves of what gives us the usual and most bodily pleasure so that

we can develop a certain hunger for God.

These practices are meant to provoke a spiritual hunger for God, a

hunger that does not come biologically. It’s a hunger that needs to be

cultivated, and it is hoped that the physical hunger effected by these

practices can trigger this spiritual hunger.

We therefore have to understand that these Lenten practices, rather

than just some Church precepts that we have to fulfill, have a basic

and indispensable inner component that should not be covered up by

mere external fulfillment of these practices.

We have to make sure that the self-denial involved in these practices

is done by our heart and will and not just by their physical and

material performance. We need to train our heart and will to

experience that hunger for God by linking that spiritual hunger with

our physical and material hunger.

This means that we need to align our mind and heart to the truths of

faith, before they get dominated by the impulses of the flesh and

other worldly factors and conditionings. This is a crucial operation

that we need to do in life. This is when we conform to the objective

truth about ourselves. This is when we are truly sincere.

Thus, in one prayer of the Mass during Lent, we ask: “Show gracious

favor, O Lord, we pray, to the works of penance we have begun, that we

may have strength to accomplish with sincerity the bodily observances

we undertake.”

These Lenten practices therefore bring to the fore the disconnect

between our spiritual self and our bodily self, a disconnect that they

try to bridge. That is why, Lent, rather than just a dull period of

self-denial, should be a most exciting and thrilling season when we do

some urgent repair job and strengthening exercises for ourselves.

This is the Good News about fasting and abstinence that we have to

welcome as eagerly and warmly as possible. That’s because these

practices actually contribute to the revitalization of our spiritual

life that never dies even as our bodily organism will unavoidably

disintegrate one day to be resurrected at the end of time.

It’s important that we see this truth about fasting and abstinence

because very often this truth is glossed over or buried under the

waves and waves of physical, material and sensual titillations of our

environment.

In fact, we need to spread this truth around, presenting it in ways

easily understandable to all kinds of people, young and old alike, to

save us from an ignorance and error that can be fatal to

us—spiritually fatal, that is.

We need to overcome our lack of sensitivity to God and to the things

of God, doing this also with naturalness, without making strange

actuations that can distort the truth about our need for God and the

spiritual and supernatural realities that we are meant to live in.

Thus, in the school I suggested to the kids who, of course, are not

yet obliged to do fasting and abstinence that, after explaining the

concept of fasting and abstinence, they can start doing these acts of

penance by delaying a little their play time after classes.

Kids, of course, love to play. They go to it like ducklings to water.

It’s automatic for them. But precisely by teaching them to delay it a

little and to spend a few moments of prayer in the chapel, they start

getting the idea. Obviously, they need to be followed up, prompting

them what to think, say and do in the chapel.

They actually get things quickly, and that’s why it’s important that

kids, as early as when they can start understanding things, be taught

and given example of how to have hunger for God. Otherwise, the bodily

urges dominate and blind them to the practical reality of God.

Obviously, everyone has to do what is appropriate to him in terms of

acts of penance. There is always hope. Even a person already hardened

in the ways of the world can still be touched by grace if he also

makes an attempt to do some fasting and abstinence properly.

If this Good News about fasting and abstinence is spread and

assimilated, for sure we will be seeing in the future many men and

women who will be at home both with God and with the world.

Freeing the senses

WE need to be more aware of our duty to take care of our senses. We

need to educate them, train them according to what is truly good for

human dignity. We just cannot allow them to move and behave by

themselves.

Yes, our eyes, ears, nose and our sense of touch and the accompanying

feelings, emotions and passions, plus the imagination and memory that

they create, need to be put on the right track. They need to be reined

in, rather than left to follow their immediate, raw and unprocessed

impulses and urges.

In theory, they need to be attached and directed by our higher

faculties of intelligence and will, and even by a more fundamental

principle which is none other than the theological virtues of faith,

hope and charity, that connect us to our ultimate origin and goal,

God.

In practice, however, this is hardly the case. Most of the time,

people just follow what to their thinking “comes naturally.” That is

to say, precisely just what their senses and feelings tell them to

think, desire, speak and do.

This is like letting barbarians to lead the development of

civilization. If ever there is some growth and improvement of culture

attained in this way, it is purely by accident and at a very great

cost, a Pyrrhic victory that involves more losses than gains.

Educating and reining in our senses and feelings in no way means

enslaving them or taking away their freedom, much less violating their

nature. It only means freeing them of their usual error to be on their

own when they in fact need to be guided and directed.

Educating and reining in our senses and feelings, including our

imagination and memory, means purifying them of their usual

limitations that can easily invite errors and deformations, and

empowering them to serve the true good of man.

When this happens, the senses and feelings and their accompanying

components actually enjoy a sublime, exquisite joy and sense of

beauty, a lot more, in fact, incomparably more than the stolen and

illicit pleasure one can derive when he just lets his senses be by

themselves.

When this happens, the senses and feelings actually sing and dance,

completely unburdened by any load of concern even as they continue to

be mindful of the reality of things that surely include negative

elements. But they would know how to deal with them, living a certain

kind detachment and abandonment so indispensable in our life.

Unfortunately this sublime joy and beauty experienced when the senses

relish their true freedom, and not the bogus one, is hardly known by

many people nowadays. It will take some massive and heroic effort to

reverse and correct the situation.

That’s why great attention has to be given in forming the young

children in the right use of their senses, feelings, imagination and

memory. It is necessary that this aspect be taken care of, since these

elements enter into the building up of their character that more or

less, defines their whole life.

How truly nice it would be if the children grow up remaining childlike

in their character even as they get exposed to more and more things in

life—challenges, trials, failures, successes, etc.—and knowing how to

deal with them as a child.

I suppose this is part of the aim of education. It’s paradoxical, of

course, to associate being like a child with human and Christian

maturity. But that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

Christ himself teaches us as much. “Be wise as serpents and simple as

doves.” (Mt 10,16) The reference to doves can easily be the image for

a childlike character. More significantly, Christ says: ‘Unless you be

converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the

kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18,3)

We have to understand that growing up does not necessarily meaning

leaving behind our childhood. In like manner, becoming an adult with

the accompanying accumulation of knowledge and experience if not

wisdom does not necessarily mean we have to be all serious and discard

the use of the senses and feelings.

While it’s true that there is a distinction between a child and an

adult, and between our senses and our intellect and will, we need to

understand that these pairs need to be blended in some mutual relation

that works for the true good of our humanity as defined by natural law

and ultimately by our faith in God.

We have to overcome the dichotomy between the two elements. We have to

work toward truly freeing our senses to let them serve our authentic

dignity.

How to fall in love

FALLING in love is certainly not only a pastime, nor a sideline, nor
a fling. It’s the main thing, the main course in life. It’s our
lifeblood.

 

All of us need to fall in love, because without love, life would have
no meaning, no purpose, no lasting and eternal effect. Without love,
life would fail to fulfill the deepest yearning of our heart. Without
love everything falls flat.

   

Though in practice we always love one way or another—even if our
loving is defective—we have to realize also that we need to fall in
love properly, understanding such love as going beyond the dynamics of
the emotions and passions that at best are just transitory.

   

For sure, love should not just be an outlet of some hormonal surges
that can get stirred by what we see, smell, touch, taste or like.
Neither should it be just a function of some psychological and
temperamental conditionings and other socio-cultural factors.

   

How then should we fall in love properly? By understanding love,
first of all, as a gift from God that we need to receive and
correspond. Love comes from God. It can only be lived and developed in
him, and never outside of him.

   

Let’s stop deluding ourselves by thinking that we can generate love
by ourselves. We can only love when we receive first the gift of love
from others.

   

These others can be, from a chronological point of view, first, our
parents, then our siblings, relatives and friends, etc. Only then can
we learn how to love others. But viewed from a bigger perspective of
love in its ultimate dimensions, we actually receive love first, in
the absolute sense, from God.

   

It is God who loves us first. That’s why in his first letter, St.
John said: “In this is charity—not as though we had loved God, but
because he has first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation
for our sins.” (4,10)

   

We have to understand that we need to tackle love first of all in its
theological sense before it is considered from other valid but
incomplete and imperfect viewpoints. That would be putting love in its
proper framework and context.
    
   

That’s usually our problem. Many of us are still allergic to seeing
things in life in a theological way, allowing faith to shed light on
what our senses can discern and on what our intelligence can
understand.

   

To fall in love properly therefore entails going to God first. That
is why we need to learn to pray, to enter into a very personal and
intimate relationship with him, and this usually takes place first of
all in our mind and heart, in our thoughts and desires.

   

We need to see to it that these basic human operations are anchored
on God and are inspired by his love for us, that is, his care for us,
the truth that he teaches us, his way of doing things that gives us an
idea of how our virtues ought to be developed.

   

Definitely, we need to do some disciplining and controlling of our
thoughts, imagination, feelings, etc. We just should not allow them to
go on their own without the guidance of faith and the drive of charity
that comes from God.

   

Indeed, a lot of training is needed here, if not, continuing struggle
and combat, since we cannot deny the fact that we are beset with
weakness and a certain attraction to evil, if not outright malice.

   

Besides, temptations are all around us. Loving therefore involves
suffering, a certain measure of pain, anguish, tension. These should
not dampen our spirits. We should rather consider them as elements
that add fun and excitement and suspense in our life.

   

The liturgical season of Lent is a good occasion to go deeper in the
skills of spiritual combat and what is known as ascetical struggle,
aside from the fact that it is meant mainly to arouse in us the spirit
of penance.

   

This spirit of penance is also as aspect of true love. Where there is
love, the desire to make up for our past mistakes, falls, offenses,
etc., also would come naturally to us. And yet this desire for penance
is done in joy and peace, knowing that it is precisely out of love
that we do it.

   

Proper loving, while it is also abiding, is never showy. Neither does
it engender in us the mentality or feelings of a victim. Loving is the
assertion of freedom. We do things because we want to.