If we could only readily welcome God in our life

WE should do everything to be able to readily welcome God in our life. When we manage to do so, we would be apt to share his power too, and like him we can do great things, even miraculous things. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our Christian faith in the first reading of the Mass of Wednesday of the Easter Octave. (cfr. Acts 3,1-10) Sts. Peter and John went to the temple area and met a crippled man who begged for some alms. But instead of giving alms, St. Peter, strongly invoking the name of Christ, told the fellow to rise and walk, and the cripple started to walk! 

 “I have neither silver nor gold,” St. Peter told the cripple, “but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.” And the miracle happened. 

 We should strengthen our belief that if we truly welcome in our life God who, in the first place, takes the initiative to share what he has with us, we too can do what God can. We would be apt to do great things. Obviously, what God shares with us can only be what is truly good for us. We cannot and should not invoke his name to do something that is evil or not in accordance to the will of God. 

 Let’s remind ourselves frequently, if not constantly, of this wonderful reality, so that we can truly say that we are doing things always with God and not simply by our own selves. It’s not presumptuous of us to remind ourselves of this truth of our faith. We really are meant to share our life with God. 

 This awareness and conviction of this truth of our faith is necessary for us, since we cannot deny that in our life we will encounter all sorts of challenges, difficulties and temptations and sin, and we should just know how to handle them properly. 

 When these challenges, difficulties, etc. come, we should immediately remind ourselves of this wonderful truth that God is always with us and is eager to help us, though in ways that may not be accordance to our expectations. 

 A healthy spirit of abandonment in God’s hands is necessary even as we exhaust all possible human means to achieve our goals or simply to tackle all the challenges, trials and predicaments of our life. We should never forget this truth of our faith. 

 In this life, we need to acquire a good, healthy sporting spirit, because life is actually like a game. Yes, life is like a game. We set out to pursue a goal, we have to follow certain rules, we are given some means, tools and instruments, we are primed to win and we do our best, but losses can come, and yet, we just have to move on. 

 Woe to us when we get stuck with our defeats and failures, developing a loser’s mentality. That would be the epic fail that puts a period and a finis in a hanging narrative, when a comma, a colon or semi-colon would have sufficed. 

 We need a sporting spirit because life’s true failure can come only when we choose not to have hope. That happens when our vision and understanding of things is narrow and limited, confined only to the here and now and ignorant of the transcendent reality of the spiritual and supernatural world.

“Save yourselves from this perverse generation”

ST. PETER said these words to the house of Israel who realized that they had crucified the very Son of God, the Messiah whom they had expected for so long. He proceeded to advise them to do some penance. (cfr. Acts 2,36-41) 

 These words can also be applied to us now. We cannot deny that we somehow fit the description of being a perverse generation, what with all the worldly addictions and afflictions we are into. 

 We should now try our best to extricate ourselves from this sad condition by truly making that effort to make God the number 1 priority of our life. Is God really the one who attracts us most? Is everything we think, say or do has God as the beginning and end? 

 Yes, we have to learn how to seek God with our utmost effort, echoing this sentiment of David when he got lost in the wilderness: “O God, you are my God. I earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Ps 63,1) 

 We have to reassure ourselves that such effort will always be rewarded a hundredfold by God himself who cannot be outdone in generosity. Remember Christ’s words: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or wife or children or field for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” (Mt 19,29) 

 We have to learn how to seek and find God in all things, big and small, and in all occasions and situations, good and bad. If we have to use the divine logic, we should first learn to seek and find God in the little things of each day before we can find him in the big things, and in the very ordinary, routine things before we can see him especially in the most trying moments of our life. 

 Let us always remember that everything can and should be related to God, especially those instances when we are most vulnerable, weak and miserable. It goes without saying that the good times we have should be moments of thanking God, especially when we experience big successes and victories which, if not related to God, can intoxicate and spoil us. 

 As St. Josemaria Escriva once said: “There is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each of you to discover it.” God is everywhere. To capture this reality, we need to learn how to be a contemplative even right in the middle of the world. 

 We should learn to detect the presence of God in everything and to take part in his abiding providence over us. He always invites us to cooperate with him in governing his creation. 

 He even invites us to “subdue the earth and have dominion over it.” (Gen 1,26-28) He invites us to complete his work of creation with him. As knowing and free collaborators, we are “God’s fellow workers.” (1 Cor 3,9) 

 So, there’s always basis to find and work with God if we look for him actively. We need to live in God’s presence since in the first place our life is supposed to be a life with God. We are meant for it. We are actually equipped and enabled for it also. And obviously there is an objective basis for this.

“Go, tell my brethren…”

WE are now on the first day after Christ’s resurrection, Monday of the Easter Octave. We are filled with overwhelming joy, knowing what Christ’s resurrection really means to all of us. Yes, in spite of whatever, we are assured that our salvation is at hand as long as we also do our part. 

 We can reflect that great joy that possessed those two brave Mary’s who dared to visit the tomb of Christ right after the sabbath. (cfr. Mt 28,8-15) Upon told by an angel that Christ has resurrected, they immediately ran to inform the other disciples. 

But Christ met them on their way. It must have been a heart-stopping moment for them to see the resurrected Christ. But Christ gave them a task. “Do not be afraid,” he told them. “Go tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” Christ definitely wanted also to be seen by his brethren who, in the end, are all of us who believe in him. 

 These words of Christ can mean that he also wants us to tell all the others in the world about Christ who just completed his redemptive mission. This is the Good News that everyone should know about and deeply appreciate. 

 It’s a task that we should carry out very seriously. Given the current conditions in the world, we really should try our best about what the resurrection of Christ means for all of us. We may have to go through a long process of catechesis, evangelization and apostolate, obviously requiring a lot of effort and sacrifices, but it would be all worth it! 

 We have to make everyone to realize that we all have the duty to sanctify the world, our work and everything related to the world. This is actually how we would also gain our own sanctification. 

 But the world should be understood as needing to be sanctified too, in the sense that we should bring it back to its original beauty and nature as God created it. It is supposed to be the Paradise before our sin damaged and defaced it. 

 Yes, it’s true that we need to be careful with the world, because of the many dangers it contains. And precisely because the world has strayed from God, God has to send his only Son to save it. St. John expressed this very well when he said: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (3,16) 

 The point to make is that we ought to have the same attitude of God toward the world, as shown to us concretely by Christ. When we have Christ’s mind and heart, we will love the world and do everything to bring it back from its alienated state to him from whom it came and to whom it belongs. 

 We would not be afraid of the world that much, because with Christ we can conquer it insofar as it is opposed to God. Rather we have to love the world the way God loves it, without being worldly. 

 This means that if we truly love God, we should not run away from the world and the many challenges it poses on us. Rather we should love it, immerse ourselves in it, make use of what is true, good and beautiful in it and purify it of what is not.