We are vital cooperators of Christ’s mission

WE need to realize this truth about ourselves more deeply and stably. We are meant to be living cooperators of Christ’s continuing mission of human redemption. And this is not only for a few, but actually for all of us. Of course, this truth of our faith can be acted on in stages. We cannot be all of a sudden active cooperators of Christ’s mission. It takes time, effort and, of course, God’s grace for us to achieve this ideal and dignity. 

 “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so, ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest,” Christ told his disciples, and is now telling us. (Lk 10,2) Despite the limitations and inadequacies we think we have to carry out this mandate, we should just try our best to respond to it. 

 We cannot deny that especially these days, there is a great need for these “laborers for the master’s harvest.” Today’s mission lands are not so much those places and people who are far away from the mainstream, those who still are kind of primitive in their culture and deprived even of the basic material necessities, as those who are in developed countries but very far in their faith. 

 More than far from the faith and from God, many people today look more resistant and even against God and anything that has to do with religion. They are more challenging since the attention and evangelization to be given to them require a more complex strategy. 

 In a sense, these places and people can constitute as the new peripheries that Pope Francis likes to talk about. And when he said that the Christian missionaries as shepherds should be ready to acquire the smell of the sheep, to be sure it will be a different smell from what we usually expect from poor, underdeveloped places and people. But just the same, it will be the smell of the lost sheep, even if the smell is sweet to the senses. 

 We therefore have to make some drastic updating of our understanding of what a missionary is. We should not get stuck with the common textbook idea that a missionary is usually a priest or nun who goes to a far-away place, and literally starts a settlement there. 

 While this concept of a missionary is still valid—it will always be—it now cries to be expanded to reflect its true character, especially given today’s fast-moving and more complicated world. 

 We have to understand that everyone, by virtue of his sheer humanity and much more, his Christianity, is called to be a missionary, and that he does not need to go to distant lands because his immediate environment already needs a more effective, down-to-earth evangelization. 

 Yes, even the ordinary guy in an office, the farmer, the businessman, the politician, the entertainers, artists and athletes, are called to be missionaries. That’s simply because as persons with a prominently social dimension in our life, we have to be responsible for one another. 

 And the biggest responsibility we can have for the others would be their moral and spiritual welfare, much more than just their economic or social wellbeing, though this latter concern is also very important. It is this responsibility that we have to learn how to be more serious about and more competent in fulfilling. This is the current situation and challenge to all of us.

A special day

OCTOBER 2 is a special day for me. First, because it is the memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels to whom we should try to have a great devotion. That’s because they actually are very helpful in our daily affairs, since they are our direct link to God. Christ said that the angels see and attend to God face to face. (cfr. Mt 18,10) They serve as his agents and messenger to us. They give us a lot of help. 

 Even in our material needs, we can ask them to facilitate things. It may just be a matter of looking for a parking space in a crowded place, or of asking for safety and security when we travel. We should not hesitate to ask them for help. It’s their pleasure to be of help. 

 Second, October 2 marks the anniversary of the foundation of a Church institution to which I intimately belong—Opus Dei. It was on this day in 1928 that St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder, saw what God has been hinting at him since he was still in his teens. 

 It was during a retreat for diocesan priests that he attended when, after Mass, he returned to his room and began to put his notes in order. Suddenly, he said, he “saw” what God wanted him to be and to do. 

 He said that what he saw were people of every nation and race, of every age and culture, seeking and finding God right in the middle of their ordinary life, their work, their family, and their friendships.  He said that he saw people who looked for Christ in order to love him and to live a holy life until they were completely transformed and made into saints—saints in the middle of the world, as in a tailor saint, for example, a baker saint, and in the context of current circumstances, a “habal-habal driver saint, and even a politician saint. Indeed, what a gratifying prospect that would be! 

 He said that he saw ordinary persons as saints, deeply identified with Christ, and who direct all their activities to God, who sanctify their work and thus sanctify themselves in their work and sanctify others through their work. 

 Third, it was on a day like this when I, at 18, and having been exposed to these considerations, decided, for reasons I did not quite understand, said yes to a lifelong vocation of total commitment to give myself completely to live the spirit of Opus Dei and carry out its mission. 

 At first there was no intention of becoming a priest. I would just be a committed layman, working in the middle of the corporate world, and trying the bring the message of Opus Dei there. This involved living in apostolic celibacy so that I could give myself more wholeheartedly to the mission of Opus Dei. 

 It was only when I was 35 when I was asked if I would like to become a priest, to which I immediately said yes. I was sent to Rome and Spain to finish my ecclesiastical studies, and finally got ordained when I was almost 40. 

 As an anniversary, every October 2 gives me reasons to be truly joyful and thankful, as well as an occasion to renew my commitment of love and to see if I am still on the right path toward my final destination. 

 Indeed, October 2 is a very special day for me!

Despite contradictions, let’s be constant in doing good

THIS is the lesson we can learn from that gospel episode where Christ corrected his disciples who wanted to bring fire on a Samaritan village that did not welcome them. (cfr. Lk 9,51-16) 

 We cannot deny that in our life, in spite of our good intentions and deeds, there will be times when we still can be rejected and even ridiculed by some people for one reason or another. We have to be guarded against reacting on these occasions in a purely human way, not the Christian way. 

 Indeed, our zeal to follow Christ can intriguingly counter what to be a true Christian is. We should not be too surprised by this phenomenon. It’s part of our wounded human condition here on earth. But we should correct ourselves as soon as possible. 

 A true Christian loves everyone, including one’s enemies. He is willing to suffer, and even to die, if necessary, out of love for God and for everyone else. The contradictions he encounters in life do not snuff out his eagerness to continue doing a lot of good. 

 Yes, we will always be hounded by contradictions in our life, but let’s learn the art of converting them into occasions to go to God more closely. And that’s when, with God, we can manage to derive good from evil. 

 On our part, we just have to be humble enough to accept this fact of life, and more, to go to God to ask for forgiveness and help every time we are feel the sting of evil. It is pure pride when we refuse to acknowledge this fact of life, and more so, when we refuse to go to God for forgiveness and help. 

We have to realize that the root of this all-too-human reactions of ours before certain contradictions is the fact that we are not yet as spiritual and supernatural as God wants us to be. St. Paul offers some explanation in his Letter to the Romans: 

 “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 

 “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 

 “So, I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work with me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! 

 “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (7,14-25)