Called

ONE basic and undeniable fact that we have to learn to correspond properly is that each one of us and all of us together are called—called by God, our Creator, our Father. We don’t live by our lonesome, with the option of connecting with others when some need arises. We are not meant to be a freelance, uncommitted individual.

            The rudimentary truth is that we are, from beginning to end, related to God and to everybody else. And this inherent relationship demands from us our conscious effort to engage with God and with everyone. That’s why we are told that God’s greatest commandment is to love God with all our strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

            We therefore have to wage an unrelenting battle against our tendency to think that as persons we are first and foremost an individual and that we in the end will just be by ourselves. We need to crush that tendency to fall into egoism.

            It’s true that a person is an individual, but it is also true that a person would not be a true person unless he is also related to others, with God as the first other. We have to process this truth more thoroughly since the dominant understanding is precisely that we are mere individuals and that our relation with others is just optional.

            Obviously, we are not forced to enter into any relation. As persons, we have to do things freely. But we also have to understand that entering into a relation is not optional. It is a necessity that we have to take up freely. It’s like the freedom to meet the necessity to breathe.

            In other words, entering into relations is part of our nature and design as persons. We have to conform ourselves to how we have been designed, since there are many things in our nature that do not come and function automatically. They need to be worked out.

            One of these things is precisely the fact that we are called. We have not been born and put into existence without this calling, first of all, from God our Creator, and then later on from everybody else.

            This kind of awareness is akin to that of spouses who are supposed to do things always thinking of the other spouse. That is why this awareness of being called can also be described as developing and having a spousal attitude toward life. We can truly say that we are married to God from beginning to end.

            This awareness of being called is what may be considered as our sense of vocation. Everyone has a vocation just as everyone has his own DNA. The vocation is like God’s program for each one of us and all of us together that extends all throughout our earthly life and beyond. It contains everything that our life is supposed to be.

            It is our duty to grow in our awareness and knowledge of our personal vocation, growing in love with it and in the generosity of living it in its fullness. This duty can start with a simple act of morning offering every day, as soon as we wake up, and then sustaining it all throughout the day by some regular reminders.

            The first thing we have to do is precisely to offer the day to God and to activate our attitude of living in God’s presence, ever attentive to his promptings which obviously he does since he is always with us, actively intervening in our lives.

            To be sure, God’s presence in us is never passive. His interventions are not of the supporting type only. He does not play a cameo role only in our life. He plays a prominent role, but he does it always with us, such that we can say that our life is and should be as much ours as it is also his.

            And this can happen if we keep and reinforce our abiding awareness that we are always called. We need to sharpen our skill to listen as attentively as possible to God’s calling, ever discerning to even the slightest insinuations that he may be making through the different events of our life, both the big, extraordinary ones and the small ones.

            What can also help are the continuing study of our faith, regular prayers or intimate conversations with God carried out in the mind and heart, recourse to the sacraments, the exercise and development of virtues.

            These will make Christ alive in our life. They nourish are awareness that we are always called by him.

Sinner-friendly

WHILE we all have to pursue the long and winding road to sanctity, we have to remember that we also have to be sinner-friendly, but not sin-friendly. We have to be most careful with the distinction.

            It would be a disaster if in our earnest effort to be holy, we become monsters instead, because we become proud and vain, feeling ourselves superior to others, making rash judgments right and left, and reeking with self-righteousness.

            To be sure, it would not be true holiness if the struggle in our spiritual life takes away charity, understanding, patience and compassion towards others. The contrary should be true. Authentic sanctity should make us more charitable, merciful, understanding and patient towards others.

            This is what we see in Christ. Accused by the leading people of the time to be “a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners,” (Mt 11,19), he did not correct that impression, but rather went along with it.

            He fraternized with sinners. Zacchaeus, for example. Matthew was another one. When a woman, caught in adultery, was presented to him for condemnation, he refrained from doing so. Instead, he dismissed her with the simple admonition to sin no more.

            Right there on the cross, a thief crucified with him, simply begged, “Lord, remember me when you shall come into your kingdom.” And Christ, without further ado, readily saw the contrition and said, “Amen, this day you shall be with me in paradise.” (Lk 23,42-43)

            Jesus was very liberal with his mercy. He did not make unnecessary demands. He who taught his disciples to forgive others not only seven times, but seventy times seven—meaning always—practised what he preached. The parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal son can attest to this.

            More than that, he told his followers to love their enemies. For that precisely is the true character of charity. It’s when it’s given gratis et amore, without expecting any return, that its authenticity is shown, that is, that its divine origin and character is shown.

            This is most vividly expressed in his passion and death on the cross. With that, he assumed the sinfulness of all men, from the first to the last, without committing sin himself. In short, he made his very own self as the very expiation for our sins. He did not merely offer some things as ransom for our sin. He offered himself.

            That’s why, Christ declared that “no man has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15,13)

            Christian life would not be complete if this infinite mercy of God is not preached and lived together with the rigor and discipline that following Christ also involves. We have to be careful in presenting the true essence of Christianity. While it has its very strict aspect, it also has its most lenient part. The two should go together.

            We need to reassure everyone that there is always hope regardless of whatever faults, mistakes and sins we commit. And in this task of reassuring everyone of hope, we cannot be passive, but rather proactive by reaching out to those who may not yet feel the urge to return to God.

            The gospel of hope, love and mercy should be spread far and wide, even in those areas where this good news is not yet welcome.

            This is the challenge we all have to confront. For sure, it can only be handled properly if we try our best to conform ourselves as intimately as possible to the mind, will and heart of Christ. There can be no other way.

            For this to happen, we need to pray and meditate on the living and eternal word of God, avail of the sacraments, study the catechism, develop and grow in the virtues, and fill ourselves with the holy zeal to bring others closer to God.

            This is how we can have a true encounter with the living Christ who often is caricaturized and disfigured by us through our inadequate effort to follow him closely. We many times reduce him to our own terms and schema because we fail to enter by the narrow gate, or we are averse to the sacrifice needed in following him.

            We have to have the living Christ before we can present and give him to others. Though there will always be obstacles along the way, we are assured that if we persevere and are willing to go all the way—even to our version of crucifixion—the truth and beauty of Christianity would simply be irresistible.

Let’s be joyful and at peace

GAUDIUM cum pace. Joy with peace. An ideal we have to reach everyday, especially at the end of the day. It is what is proper to us. Without it, we would be miserable creatures, regardless of the riches, power and fame we may have.

                As Sacred Scripture would have it, “A merry heart is the true life of man, is an unfailing store of holiness. Length of years is measured by rejoicing.” (Sir 30,23) And St. Thomas Aquinas has this to say apropos: “Happiness is a good proper to human beings. Animals can only be called happy by a misuse of language.”

            There are many benefits of joy and peace. The Book of Proverbs says, “A cheerful heart makes a quick recovery. It is crushed spirits that waste a man’s frame.” (17,22) Joy facilitates thinking and reasoning. It helps us understand people and situations. It fosters simplicity, creates a good atmosphere around, builds up unity.

            We have to make sure that we are happy and peaceful. Obviously, we have to understand that to be in that state is first of all a result of grace which we should always ask and pray for. But it is also a product of our own correspondence to God’s grace, and of our effort to follow more closely Christ’s teaching and example.

            The joy and peace rooted on Christ transcend the physical and earthly dimensions. They can be lived even in what may be considered humanly speaking as difficult moments of pain, suffering and privation.

            Thus, St. Paul once said: “In all things we suffer tribulation, but we are not distressed. We are sore pressed, but we are not destitute. We endure persecution, but we are not forsaken. We are cast down, but we do not perish. We are always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus so that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodily frame.” (2 Cor 4,8-10)

            We need to go theological to attain this state of joy and peace. We cannot rely solely on the physical, medical and other worldly elements that go into the making of joy and peace. We need faith. We need to be vitally united with Christ.

            We have to see to it that every day, and in fact, in every activity we do during the day, we should always end with a sense of joy, satisfaction and fulfillment, no matter how things went. They can go badly, humanly speaking, but if our sense of joy and peace is theological, we will always find meaning, beauty and purpose in them.

            This is crucial because it is joy that keeps us going, that keeps us alive. We may get physically tired, but our spirit would still be vibrant. We can still manage to smile, to be hopeful and positive about things, to be encouraging in our words and deeds.

            And all this not because we are inventing things. We are convinced of the solid foundation of our faith that secures and guarantees our conviction about our sense of joy and peace. It’s this conviction that would make us consistently happy in good times and bad times, whether alone or with others.

            It’s a pity to see many wilted faces around precisely because many people do not know where to find their joy and peace. They look for them in some pills, or in merely physical and emotional well-being, and in many instances, in some forms of escapism like drugs, sex and the now-proliferating inane forms of entertainment and games.

            They end up more depressed and more cheated than before. Their joy and peace is a thin chimera that cannot take the test of time and the many trials and challenges in life.

            We have to help one another develop the proper sense of joy and peace.  We need to show the joy contained in the gospel, in the sacraments, in the exercises of prayer and penance.

            All too often, these spiritual things are pictured as dour and gloomy or a killjoy. We have to expose and explode that myth. The contrary is in fact the truth. But we need to go through some theological thinking to see this reality.

            We need to do some massive and urgent rescue operation, not unlike what should have been done to give immediate relief and comfort to our Yolanda victims. Many of us are deceived by a kind of sweet poison that prevents us from appreciating the objective character of joy and peace, as well as their true source and the proper means to have them.