Everything starts with God’s love

THIS is very fundamental and indispensable for us to know. Otherwise, we would have a wrong idea of what our life is all about. God loves us first before we learn to love him and everybody and everything else in return. Thus, we need to know what that divine love involves and, more, to feel it so that we would know how to love properly. 

 That’s because, in the end, everything that happens in our life and everything that we do, from our thoughts, intentions, words and deeds, should be ruled by the law of this divine love. After all, our very existence is the fruit of the love of God, and it is also this divine love that is the origin and goal of our life. 

 This divine love should urge us to respond with a most generous self-giving that is done without any calculation. That’s because that’s the way God loves us, and how God loves us should also be how we should love him and others in return. Love is always repaid with love. 

 That God loves us so much is due to the fact that we are his very image and likeness. We are meant to share his life and nature. We can say that how God loves his own self is also how he loves us. That’s how important we are to him. 

 That is why in the Psalms, there is an expression about the great wonder why God loves us much. “What is man that you are mindful of him, human beings that you care for them?” (8,4) 

 This love of God for us covers everyone, irrespective of how we are. He does not reject the sinners. In fact, it’s them that he shows a special kind of love. In the gospel, we see Christ looking after tax collectors, he listened to the good thief who was crucified with him and promised heaven to him, he showed mercy to the woman caught in adultery, etc. 

 Of course, God does not love sin itself. He loves the sinner, but not the sin. What he desires is our conversion and invites us to it. That is why it is good that we always look at his loving and merciful care for us. He is not one who is hell-bent to punish us for our sins. If he gives us some form of punishment, it is for us to be more cleansed and to put us in a better condition to love God and others in return. 

 On our part, the sorrow we feel because of our guilt should not just be a matter of feeling dirty or weak or fragile. Rather it should be an expression of how good God is to us and of how our sins actually pain us. Our contrition, weaknesses and failures should be converted into a motive to unite ourselves more with God to seek his mercy. 

 What we ought to do is to go immediately to God and to refer things to him. He will be the one to reassure us that everything will just be fine. Nothing happens without him knowing and allowing it to happen. And if he allows it to happen, it is because there is a greater good that can be derived from it. In God’s math, the gains far outweigh the losses. 

 Of course, what this greater good is can escape our understanding, given our limitations. And that’s why we have to activate our faith. Otherwise, we would confine ourselves to our own limited understanding of things that can make us suffer unnecessarily.

Rediscover God through faith and love

THAT rather amusing gospel episode about those who were so amazed at the preaching of Christ in the synagogue that they could not believe that someone just like them, coming from the same place and whose family they knew, could preach the way Christ did (cfr. Mk 6,1-6), tells us that we have the tendency to take Christ for granted. 

 Yes, we have the tendency to fall into overfamiliarity and complacency with regard to our relation with Christ. Especially these days when we are so highly stimulated by earthly and temporal things that we forget about the spiritual and supernatural dimensions of our life, we need to make some extra effort to rediscover God by revving up our faith and love. 

 Let’s always remember that being the image and likeness of God whose very essence is love, we need to realize that it is to love the way God loves, as shown to us by Christ, is the fundamental option of our life. It is what constitutes the real dignity of our humanity. 

 We have to realize then that to be truly human, let alone, Christian, we need to have a real encounter with Christ. That is when we can truly be on the path toward our transformation into the fullness of our humanity, since that’s where we can see how much Christ loves us. 

 We should find time to have a very personal encounter with Christ, strengthening our friendship with him, since that would constitute as the fundamental experience that would sustain our Christian life. 

 And if at times due to our weaknesses, tiredness, etc., we lose him, we know that he always waits for us, and even looks for us or facilitates our finding him even if we do not look for him. 

 We should realize more deeply that loving God through Christ in the Holy Spirit should be the first priority in our life. We can do that if we develop a working life of piety made up of certain practices of piety that would fire up our love for God and for everybody else. 

 Let’s remember that whatever little effort we do to develop our life of piety will always attract God’s tremendous love for us, as articulated in that passage in the gospel of St. Matthew: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.” (25,21) 

 We should stay away from anything that would cool down our love for God and for others or that would lead us to spiritual lukewarmness. We have to be wary of our tendency to be driven by egoism or the thought that we are our own God which only shows that we have the strong tendency to fall into pride. 

 Spiritual lukewarmness is a very common spiritual illness. What’s so dangerous about it is that it often passes as something ordinary and normal. It hardly causes any worry, much less, alarm. It lulls many of us to think there’s no problem. 

 It’s an attitude, a mindset, and, worse, a culture that is stuck with the minimalist virus, contented with what is practical, convenient, popular, profitable, etc., and goes no further. It justifies itself by saying, “Why do I need to go any further? Things are already ok as they are.” 

 It is the perfect expression of the adage, “The good is the enemy of the best.” And so, it fails to submit itself to the law of love that requires self-giving without measure, a total self-giving whose language is generosity and heroism all the way to death.

God calls us despite whatever

THAT intriguing story of how St. Matthew, a tax-collector, was called by Christ to be one of his apostles (cfr. Mt 9,9-13) brings out the truth of our Christian faith that God can choose anyone to pursue a special vocation and ministry, irrespective of how that person is. 

 It should be clear to us that it is God who will enable and empower us to carry out what God has in mind for us. On our part, we should just try our best to be as receptive and responsive to God’s call and designs. We all know that we can only do so much, but we are assured by St. Paul that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1,6) 

 Let’s never forget that God is ever eager to share what he has with us, we being his image and likeness, meant to share his very own life and nature. He, of course, will allot what is proper to us according to his plans for the world and for the whole of humanity. We should just be open and welcoming to whatever he shares with us. 

 We, of course, have our own limitations, let alone, our strong tendency to fall into sin and into all sorts of anomalies. But then again, as St. Paul reminded us, “I (we) can do all things through Him who strengthens and empowers me (us)…” (Phil 4,13) 

 Indeed, as St. Paul mentioned, we can manage to be all things to all men. (cfr. 1 Cor 9,22) And we can handle any situation in life, whether good or bad in human terms, as long as we do everything with God and for God. If our faith in God is strong and abiding, we know that everything will work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28) 

 So, there’s really no reason for us to be overly concerned and worried about anything. On the contrary, we have every reason to be serene, confident and hopeful. Yes, we can manage to be cheerful, with a smile that never leaves our face. 

 We should just be quick to receive whatever God gives or shares with us. And be very generous in corresponding to God’s will and designs for us. For this, we have to learn how to be ambitious and bold in setting up goals that are relevant to God’s will for us. We should also be creative and resourceful in coming up with the relevant means and instruments we need to pursue God’s will. 

 There is really no reason for us to feel insecure in carrying out God’s will for us. We know that more than us, it is God who will do things for us and with us. Victory and success are guaranteed, although we are not exempted from going through a lot of trials and sufferings. 

 But then again, if we would go through these trials and sufferings with Christ, we know that they are occasions for us to identify ourselves more with Christ, the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. Those trials and sufferings are occasions to learn what true love is, expanding our very restrictive idea of what love is. 

 We should often ask ourselves, “Lord, what do you want me to do now?” And from there, let’s embark on a most exciting divine adventure meant for the good of all men and for the glorification of our Father God!