Enterprising but not opportunistic

WE are, of course, encouraged to be very fruitful and

productive in our life. There should be no time for laziness and

idleness. Even in our periods of rest, we can and should always be

productive, since rest is not about doing nothing but rather about

doing something different from the usual things we do which gives us

some relaxation but can still be productive in another way.

            Our rest should not undermine our desire and eagerness to

work. Rather, it should renew us physically, mentally and spiritually

in such a way that we would like to work more and be productive. In

short, our rest should not take us away from our duty to work and to

be productive, but would rather reinforce it.

            Thus, if we are truly serious about being fruitful and

productive, we should be as enterprising as possible, even

entrepreneurial, quick to take initiatives and to open new ventures

that can benefit many people and make a significant change in our

lives. We should be able to use and optimize all our resources,

natural and man-made, for this purpose.

            We just have to make sure that all this is our way of

giving glory to God that would translate itself to working for the

common good, and not just for our own personal good. Otherwise, all

that productiveness would amount to nothing and can, in fact, occasion

a great danger to us, as Christ himself said: “What does it a profit a

man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” (Mk 8,36)

            At the moment, we can wonder if indeed this is the

principal motive and driving force why we at present work. I have my

doubts. Even a cursory look around somehow would tell me that God is

often out of the picture when work is given some consideration. We

need to address this issue.

            We have to see to it that our efforts to be fruitful and

productive are not of the opportunistic type that would take advantage

of the weaknesses of the others to bolster our personal interests.

Opportunistic fruitfulness is selfish or self-serving productiveness.

            Rather our efforts to be fruitful and productive should

address real needs of the people, not the artificial ones that, while

generating some economic activity, can lead us sooner or later to

anomalies like materialism, commercialism, hedonism and other isms.

They should be made to clearly serve and reinforce the true and

objective dignity of man.

            In this regard, we should expect some sacrifices and forms

of self-denial to be involved. We just should not behave according to

purely economic laws that may already ignore or even contradict not so

much our legal system as our objective moral law. A form of

fruitfulness and productiveness that is without morality will always

be fake, deceptive and dangerous.

            Educating people about this attitude toward work and life

in general is now a big challenge because it can readily be seen that

many people nowadays, especially the young ones, do not have yet the

right spirit of work. They work only for themselves, to satisfy not so

much their personal needs as their ‘caprichos.’

            I imagine that this phenomenon must be a result of years

of miseducating the previous generations about the true spirit of work

and about what it means to be truly fruitful and productive.

            Indeed a massive effort to inculcate a good work ethic,

one that instills genuine spirituality and morality, should be

launched. Of course, this should not be done in a coercive way, since

that would defeat the purpose. It has to be done in an atmosphere of

freedom and a sincere pursuit of what is true and proper for us

insofar as our work is concerned.

            Of course, all this has to start in the family, before we

can count on the subsidiary support of schools, parishes, offices and

other entities.

Up close and personal

            THAT gospel episode about Christ healing a big crowd of

sick people by laying his hands on each one of them (cfr. Lk 4,40)

speaks eloquently of how we ought to deal with everyone we meet in our

life. He just did not say, “All of you, be cured.” No. He approached

everyone and laid his hands on each one.

            Like Christ, we should try to be up close and personal

with each of the people we meet, irrespective of who they are, whether

they are relatives, friends, colleagues, strangers and even enemies.

We have to avoid a casual and generic dealing that does not go deep

enough to show and give the real charity that we are commanded to do.

            Of course, this will require a lot of effort and

sacrifice. We most likely will be tempted to think that Christ is God

first of all. He has all the powers. Nothing is impossible with him.

We cannot be like him since he is God in the first place. We are only

human.

  

            But he is also man who has assumed our human condition to

the point of becoming like sin without committing sin (cfr. 2 Cor

5,21). He has assumed the worst condition that man can get into. Being

“the way, the truth and the life,” he is showing us in this particular

case how to deal with people in general.

            The fact that we are simply human beings with all sorts of

limitations and weaknesses should not be an excuse from developing and

having a universal concern with a personalized approach in our

dealings with people.

            Let us remember that we have been made in God’s image and

likeness, endowed with powers to enable us, with God’s grace, to be

truly like God. In other words it’s like we have been given a blank

check the amount of which we are completely free to write. And what we

write on that check depends on how we correspond to God’s grace in our

effort to be like God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

            We have to train ourselves to have the very mind and heart

of Christ. This, of course, would require us to do some adjustments

and even drastic changes in our attitudes and ways. What is needed is

that we just try and try, even if our best efforts cannot achieve that

ideal. Anyway, we are not really expected to reach that goal with our

powers alone. It is Christ, with his grace, that will do it for us.

Ours is simply to try.

  

            We, of course, have our own personal ways that can sort of

define us—our temperament, personality, our biases and preferences,

our culture and lifestyle, our opinions and views, etc.—but we should

not be trapped by them.

            Our differences and conflicts among ourselves are

unavoidable. But they are not meant to be divisive, alienating us from

the others. They, in fact, can be the condition to generate the power

of God’s love that unites everyone to work on us.

            That is why Christ told us to be humble, to have the

attitude of wanting to serve and not to be served, to avoid the

attitude of entitlement. He told us to deny ourselves and carry the

cross. (cfr. Mt 16,24) St. Paul reiterates the same idea by saying

that we have to regard everybody else as better than us, looking after

the other’s interest rather than simply focusing on our own. (cfr.

Phil 2,3-4)

            This may be a tremendous, overwhelming endeavor to

undertake, but we can always start somewhere. Are we training

ourselves, for example, to be more thoughtful and mindful of others?

Are we developing a keen interest in the others? Are we learning to

let go of our personal preferences to accommodate the way others are?

Practical training in chastity

THIS concern should never be taken for granted. This

is actually a much bigger concern than what we have in the areas of

politics, social life, business or the now in-thing of climate change,

ecology and other environmental issues.

  

                And the simple reason is that this concern is

fundamental in our life. This virtue figures prominently in our

capacity to love on which all the other aspects of our life depend. It

is first of all a fruit of real love that comes from God and the seed

that gives life to real love also.

  

                If that capacity to love is compromised, either openly

or subtly, then we can be brilliant, productive and impressive in the

other aspects but we would still miss the point, we would still miss

the real goal.

  

                Moreover, we would likely create a bigger mess the

more powerful we are in the other aspects that are not driven or

inspired by real love. We can enter into the world of illusions, if

not delusion, that can be so grave that we may not even realize it.

And that’s because if we do not have the real love, we can only have

the alternative of self-love which is a sweet poison.

  

                Plainly put, chastity is putting our body and

everything in it in the dynamic of true love that has God as the

source, the pattern, the energy, and the end. Yes, it involves the

proper regulation of our thoughts, desires, emotions and passions, all

the way to the level of the hormones.

   

                Sad to say, this virtue is now so ignored,

misunderstood and badly lived that some people are actually wondering

if it is still possible to live it. Practically all of us have

suffered the erratic ways of our flesh. But obviously, chastity is

always possible and practicable.

   

                But yes, we cannot deny that it involves a lot of

effort and self-discipline. Aside from the spiritual and supernatural

means that should always be given priority in our effort to develop

this virtue, we have to undertake a rigorous practical training to be

chaste.

  

                We should not be naive not to acknowledge that we

carry within ourselves our first formidable enemy in this struggle for

chastity. It’s our body itself that is ruled by strong biological

constituents like hormones, instincts, temperaments, etc. that can go

wild if not properly handled.

                  We need to be keenly aware of them, of how they work,

etc., so that we would know how to direct them to the dynamic of real

love. The ideal state should be that we have a strong dominion over

these biological elements.

  

                Of course, we cannot be in complete control of these

things, but at least we are doing something to dominate them. We have

to be careful with the food we eat, the things we see and handle that

can trigger unchaste reactions, etc. We have to be careful with our

thoughts, imagination and memory.

  

                We have to develop a strong, alert and prompt will to

resist the erratic and erotic urges of the flesh. These urges can come

anytime, but especially in our more vulnerable moments as when we are

tired and alone, when going to bed or upon waking up. These are times

when the body would simply look for sensual pleasures as its way of

having relief and compensation.

  

                It’s in these moments that we have to intensify our

prayer, making many acts of faith, hope and charity. Our mind and

heart should be filled with good thoughts, desires and images so that

our senses, our emotions and feelings would be put at ease and in

condition to love, to think of God and of the others, to think of what

we can do for them.

  

                And we cannot deny the importance of resorting to some

severe corporal mortifications to discipline the body. Sad to say,

this practical training in chastity is still unheard of by many these

days.