Dealing with unavoidable treachery

IT’S a fact of life. We are all traitors. We practice treachery even within ourselves. That’s why we fall into sin. We, of course, do it also among ourselves. And in spite of our best efforts, we can still fall into it even with God. In fact, it’s with God that we are most treacherous, since any treachery we do with our own selves and with others is first of all a treachery with God. Every sin is a form of treachery with God. 

 We are reminded of this intriguing phenomenon in the gospel reading of Tuesday of Holy Week. (cfr. Jn 13:21-33, 36-38) We are presented with the sad story of Judas Iscariot, one of the apostles who enjoyed intimate moments with Christ and confidence from him. 

 Despite that ideal condition, Judas managed to turn Christ in. Of course, he showed repentance later on that led him to hang himself. But it’s not for us to judge where he is now. We know that God is the only one to give the final judgment and that he is all merciful. 

 So, we should not be surprised by this fact of life and just proceed to see how we can deal with this danger more effectively. And I believe that the way to do it is to truly develop an abiding intimate life with Christ. 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to ignore the due attention and care we need to give to our interior, intimate life where our true world as a person is located. That’s where we know who we really are and how we are relating with everyone and with everything. 

 Our usual problem in this area is that we just live our life most of the time reacting in a purely human and natural way to things around us. As a result, we are prone to fall into either activism or obstructionism, and all the other isms that are actually not proper to us as a person, let alone, as a child of God. And the inevitable effect is that there is hardly any intimate life in us. 

 If we want to be consistent with our faith and allow our faith to guide our mind and heart and all the other faculties we have, then we would know that God is with us and that he loves us and is always intervening in our life. In fact, we believe that he is actually directing and shaping our life. Ours is simply to go along with him as far as we can. 

 This is what is called developing an intimate life or a life in the Spirit of God. It is an abiding awareness that God is with us and that we are living our life with him and for him. Everything in our life would have God as the main reference point, the beginning and end, the giver of meaning to everything, and the provider of all the resources we need to deal with any situation in our life. 

 This is how we can aspire to effectively deal with the constant danger of treachery. We can have the sense of confidence once articulated by St. Paul when he said: “If God is for us, who can be against us?...Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers…will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8,31.38-39)

God and the poor

THE gospel reading for Monday of Holy Week, taken from the gospel of St. John 12,1-11, reminds us that we should not make God and the poor to compete with each other for our attention, care and love. Our attention, care and love for them should always go together. If we love God, we should also love the poor. If we love the poor, it is presumed that we love God first. 

 This truth of our faith was highlighted when Judas Iscariot complained why a woman wasted precious oil on Christ when it could have been sold and the sale could have been given to the poor. 

 That’s when Christ told him, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” (Jn 12,7-8) 

 It’s interesting to note that the gospel mentioned that Judas was actually not interested in caring for the poor but that he was a thief and held the money bag of the apostles and used to steal the contributions. 

 That observation is very important and should be taken seriously, especially among the clergy and those involved in financial matters. It cannot be denied that money can easily corrupt anyone. We should exert special effort to be truly guarded against this temptation. 

 And the only way to do that is be truly with Christ and to have a clear and strong purity of intention every time we handle money. Money should be used to give glory to God and for the common good, giving special preference to the poor. Otherwise, we end up as an easy target to this irresistible temptation. 

 In this regard, we have to learn how to use money to give glory to God. It cannot be denied that many times we think that money is just a purely personal affair, and that God has nothing to do with it. We have to correct that dangerous misconception about money. We need to realize that money is a very powerful tool to achieve something good or something bad. We need to use it wisely. 

 Given all these considerations, I imagine that we really need to be prayerful so as to always be in God’s presence, ever mindful of his will and ways with respect to the use of money. We should learn how to be recollected while in the midst of the hustle and bustle of our daily activities and concerns. 

 This, of course, will require a certain discipline. We have to train our senses and our other faculties to discern God’s presence and providence in everything. In short, we have to become real contemplatives in the middle of the world. 

 Thus, a certain plan has to be developed and followed, a plan consisting of a number of acts of piety that can help us to be in God’s presence and to decipher his will and ways all throughout the day and in all kinds of situations that we find ourselves in. 

 This can mean a daily period of prayer and meditation, recourse to the sacraments, thorough study of the doctrine of our faith, and some devotions that will keep our heart aflame all the time. 

 We have to learn how to relate everything to God, a process that may involve the practice of relating things to the different lawful authorities that we are subject to. These lawful authorities are God’s immediate representatives to us.

Palm Sunday opens the Holy Week

ON Palm Sunday, we will be having a very long gospel reading that narrates the very passion and death of Christ, our Redeemer. (cfr. Mt 26,14-27-66) Our human reaction to this day may be different from what should be expected from us. 

 That’s understandable. But we should not miss the fact that with the Holy Week and the long readings and other extraordinary forms of penance and mortification asked of us these days, we are actually invited to enter into the very dynamic of the most sublime form of love that Christ is showing us through his passion, death and later his resurrection. 

 This is what we should bear in mind as strongly and as deeply as possible. That’s because what we are given during these days is the occasion to turn ourselves to be truly like Christ, which is what we are meant to be. 

 Christ is the very personification of love, the very essence of God that is also meant for us. Love, of course, is the sweetest and greatest thing we can ever have, but we can achieve that only in heaven. While here, that love, given our wounded condition, cannot be pursued and developed without the cross of Christ. 

 We just have to learn to reconcile ourselves with that truth of faith. Let’s not deceive ourselves by thinking that we can achieve love and everything that it brings—joy, peace, etc.—without going through the cross of Christ. 

 Christ himself said it very clearly. If we have to follow him, as we must, we should deny ourselves and carry the cross. That’s because we always have the strong, almost inherent tendency to think that our true joy is when we would just satisfy our natural needs as well as our infranatural, i.e., sinful, wants and desires. 

 We need to be liberated from such enslaving tendency of ours. And there’s no other way to do that than by following what Christ said, taught and showed us. Indeed, we have to learn to truly deny ourselves and carry the cross of Christ. 

 This definitely is a big challenge, a very tall order. We first of all have to overcome whatever doubts and disbelief we can have regarding this truth of faith. We need to truly enliven our faith. And then, we should start going through a training process and program so that we can turn into practice what our faith tells us. 

 In this regard, we can never overemphasize the need for us to have some effective plan of life that makes this truth of our faith as its directing and shaping principle. Everything else in our life should be animated by this principle—our personal and family life, our professional and social life, our business and politics, our sports and entertainment, our cultural pursuits, etc. 

 We need to help one another in this effort. We should try our best that we create a world culture that lives this kind of spirit and lifestyle, first by clarifying whatever misconceptions we can have with regard to this truth of our faith, and then by constantly fostering its practice. 

 Now, with the powerful technologies at hand, we should see to it that they are used primarily for this purpose. We can be sure that by using these technologies for this purpose, we would be truly using them properly, and avoid being deceived and misled by their many tempting conveniences and advantages they offer. 

 May everyone have a most meaningful Holy Week!