As we enter the New Year

EVERY New Year reminds us, of course, of another opportunity

to make a new beginning in our life. This is a law that governs us in

this life. We have to begin and begin again, because no matter how far

we have reached and how much we have gained in terms of experience if

not of wealth, power, etc., we can never say that we have reached our

ultimate goal, which is to be with God in heaven forever.

          There will always be the need to make a new beginning. So

let us enter the New Year with a renewed spirit of faith, hope and

charity, the basic and indispensable guide we need as we go through

our life’s journey that will involve all sorts of temporal and earthly

affairs that are supposed to be the means and occasions to lead us to

heaven.

          Let us remember that our life is not simply earthly,

material, temporal and natural. It is also spiritual and meant to be

supernatural and eternal in its final, definitive state. We have to

develop our life in such a way that its spiritual and supernatural

character is never compromised.

          We should not forget that the ultimate parameter or

condition of everything in our earthly life is to be with God. We

should not exchange this condition for whatever good that the world

can offer us. As Christ said: “What shall it profit a man, if he shall

gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8,36) As we enter

the new year, let us tighten our relation with God first.

          In this regard, we have to make some kind of prognostication

of what we can expect for this new year. It goes without saying that

there will be new things, new challenges, new goals, etc., that we

have to contend with. In fact, we can expect so many of them that if

we are not careful and prepared, we can easily get lost or at least

get confused.

          The profusion of new things should not surprise us anymore.

The great progress in the arts, sciences and technologies, and the

growing number of people going into all kinds of inventions and

creations, etc. insure that more and more new things will come our

way.

          We really would need to be very discerning in getting

involved in these new things, lest we can get swallowed up by them and

thrown into a current which we would be unable to give proper

direction. These new things can be a blessing or a curse. They can

give us some advantages and conveniences, but they can also be sweet

poisons and Trojan horses. They can be a friendly fire and replicate

the story of the tower of Babel.

          These new things are supposed to enhance, not stifle, our

life, especially our basic duties toward God, our families and others,

and our own selves. What oftentimes happens is that the new things

tend to disorient us, to distract us from our more basic duties.

          So, if these new things become an obstacle in carrying out

our duties to God, to the family, to others and to ourselves, then

they are no good. If they only would lead us to self-indulgence and

self-absorption and all kinds of disorder, they are a great danger to

us. If they trap us into their fascinating dynamic and desensitize us

from our duty towards God and others, they are actually our enemies.

          We need to be truly discerning because definitely we just

cannot discard these new things altogether. We cannot and should not

ignore the many good things they offer us. In fact, we should take

advantage of them. But we need to be well-grounded on the right sense

of priorities because these new things will pose competing values to

us, and we simply have to know which one has priority over the other.

Beware of self-seeking

WE have to be wary of our common tendency to seek ourselves

rather than to seek God, which is proper to us. This tendency is

usually actualized everyday as we go through the different events and

concerns of the day.

          It’s good, of course, that we work to meet a deadline, for

example, or to make money, to attain a desirable goal, etc. But let’s

to see to it that all this is done for God’s glory and not just for

our own satisfaction. Otherwise, no matter how successful we are in

these endeavors, if they are not for God’s glory, they are worth

nothing in the end.

          Relevant passages in the gospel support this assertion.

“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these

things will be given to you as well.” Christ himself said. (Mt 6,33)

          In another instance, Christ also said, “What shall it profit

a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” These

words clearly tell us that we have to take care first of our spiritual

life that is concerned about keeping a loving relationship with God

before we worry about human motives, no matter how legitimate they

are.

          Thus, St. Paul said it very directly, “Whether you eat or

drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor

10,31) It should be clear in our mind that if our motive for doing

things is short of giving glory to God, those things which may turn

out to be deeds and accomplishments in human terms would fail to

fulfill the ultimate purpose for which they done.

          Let us remember that our life here on earth, and everything

in it, especially our deeds, is meant to be a proof of our love for

God, of our correspondence to his continuing interventions in our

life, since everything is supposed to be an encounter of God, an

encounter whose proper character is that of us giving glory to him.

          By so doing, we actually affirm our true dignity as persons

and children of God, created in his image and likeness, meant to share

in God’s own life and nature. By so doing we do not demean ourselves

nor annul our freedom.

          Quite the contrary! We need to realize that we are nothing

without God. Our problem is that we think we can be something without

him. Let’s always remember what Christ said once: “I am the vine, you

are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much

fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15,5)

          We just have to make sure that whatever we do, it should

always be for the glory of God. Yes, as usually happens, it can be

implied that we are actually glorifying God in whatever we are doing

even if our immediate motive is something that is human and

legitimate.

          But we need to pause and rectify ourselves from time to

time, because for us to slip into something purely human without doing

things for love of God is very easy and can pass with us hardly

noticing it. That is why it is imperative that we pause and make some

kind of self-examination to see if we have the right motive in our

actuations.

          A tremendous amount of humility is needed here, since we

have a strong tendency to be proud, vain, self-centered and to feel

self-sufficient. We have a strong tendency to lose our sense of

complete dependence on God.

          We can think that for us to be truly free, we have to

declare independence from God. Or we can wrongly think that by

maintaining our dependence or union with God, we are compromising our

sense of responsibility over our whole life.

          So, let’s be wary of the subtle ways we can get trapped in

the dynamics of self-seeking.

The scourge of impurity

REMEMBER that in the 60s, during my high school days in

the province, I never heard, much less, seen pornography. And the sin

of self-abuse was practically unheard of. If ever, there only were

very occasional and very hushed mention of them among the ‘naughty’

boys who were, of course, my friends.

          I started hearing about these things more often and more

openly when I began my college studies in Manila in the late 60s and

early 70s. It was a period of drastic changes in my life, reflecting

very vividly the many changes I experienced in my own body and those

I’ve seen in the environment.

          Truth to tell, I experienced what St. Paul described in his

Letter to the Romans: “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am

carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do

not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…

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

see in my member 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 death? Thanks be to God

through Jesus Christ our Lord!...” (7,14ff.)

          I was most thankful that in those years, I also discovered

my vocation that somehow shielded me to a large extent from the

enormous pressure of the temptations outside and inside. Those were

tumultuous times that occasioned in me the strengthening of my faith,

my piety, my hope, my charity and the whole gamut of the virtues.

          The lesson and insight I learned from those years was that

God allows us to get dirty in difficult if not impossible situations

in order to purify us, to prod us to really grow in the virtues in

their genuine state and not just their appearance or caricature. He

never leaves us and is always there to help, but we have to learn to

turn to him.

          Our problem usually is that we tend to ignore him. And

that’s when what is already bad becomes worse. But if we go to him in

our weakness and even in sinfulness, he will always be there to help.

I believe that’s what St. Paul meant when he said:

          “But he (Christ) said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for

you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast

all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may

rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses,

in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I

am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12,9-11)

          Thus, we should not worry too much, much less plunge into

despair when we are caught in a seemingly helpless and irredeemable

situation because such situation can actually occasion a marvelous

change and improvement in our life through God’s grace and mercy.

          Somehow, with Christ we can echo these reassuring

experiences of St. Paul who said: “We are afflicted in every way, but

not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not

forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body

the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested

in our bodies.” (2 Cor 4,8-10)

          God can always derive good from evil. He allows, not causes,

evil to befall on us so that a greater good can be made. We should

always bear this wonderful truth of our faith in mind, always asking

for his grace so that we can also do our part to correspond to his

loving grace and mercy by praying, sacrificing, etc., as we tackle the

challenge of the scourge and epidemic of impurity.