Charity amid our growing differences and conflicts

CONSIDERING the rapidly growing differences and conflicts among ourselves not only in terms of age and generation, but also and especially in terms of opinions, lifestyle, culture, and even beliefs, etc., we have to be prepared to deepen and broaden our sense of charity so we can manage to love everyone, as we should, in spite of all the in spites of. 

 We can only do this if we truly identify ourselves with Christ, having his very mind and heart that are willing to go all the way to offer his life if only to love everyone, even if not all will reciprocate that love. 

 In many schools at this time, there is such a thing as retooling their programs if only to align and adapt their training to the fast-evolving developments and needs of the industry, corporations and other institutions they want to serve. What should never be neglected is how to equip the students in their spiritual and moral life, and particularly in how to live in charity, in the context of the current world condition. 

 I am particularly concerned about how the young ones especially are being prepared to face the challenges of the times. They are getting more and more exposed to highly fictionalized movies and books that show, if not promote, violence, rash judgments, the law of Talion. And they seem to be undernourished, if not starved, in their life of piety. It looks like religion to them has become an irrelevant item in their lives. 

 The challenge to face nowadays is how to teach everyone, especially the young ones, how to find Christ in everything, and how to let everyone realize more deeply that we need Christ in all our earthly affairs. This, definitely, will be a daunting task, but I believe it is all worthwhile. 

 We cannot deny that many people are trapped in the earthly systems of self-indulgence, self-assertion and self-affirmation, with their relation with God and with others practically unattended. There is a great need for everyone to learn what Christ told us about how to follow him: that we have to deny ourselves and carry the cross. (cfr. Mt 16,24) 

 This is the formula to follow if we want to live charity that has a universal coverage. Charity is not only for those who are right in something. It’s also for those who are wrong. It’s not only for the winners. It’s also for the losers. Not only for friends, but also for enemies! 

 But the universal inclusivity of charity does not do away with the exclusivity of truth. It does not do away with the distinction between good and evil, between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood. In fact, it sharpens that distinction. And yet, it still works in all that distinction. 

 Yes, charity is all-inclusive, though it is expressed, of course, in different ways. As they say, we have to have different strokes for different folks. And that’s simply because at the end of the day, whether we like it or not, we are all creatures and children of God, brothers and sisters to each other. We have been created by our Creator out of love and also for love. 

 We have to realize that our life here on earth can be described as a journey toward our ultimate home, which is to be with God our Father and Creator in heaven. It will be charity that would keep us going and that would enable us to leap to the eternal supernatural life with God.

Marriage is not our creation

“WHAT therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mk 10,9) 

 That, in a nutshell, is how God created and designed marriage for us. It’s a lifelong, unbreakable commitment that is founded on God’s love and on our faith in him. Marriage is never just our own invention that would depend on how things go nor on the terms we set for it. Marriage should be entered into according to God’s designs for it, according to his terms, and not ours. 

 Thus, in the wedding ceremony, the man and the woman, armed by God’s grace, promise each other that they will stick together “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” 

 As designed by God, marriage is for a man and a woman who in their God-based love for each other make themselves one flesh. Being a God-based love, it has to go beyond the human level of love. It has to be a love that is supernatural as shown to us and shared with us by Christ. 

 This God-based love will definitely be quite a tall order for us, since we are expected to go beyond our human and natural powers and resources. But as long as our faith in God is deep and strong, we can hack it, because more than us it is God himself who will enable us to love as God loves as shown to us by Christ. This God-based love can handle anything in our life. 

 Given the confusion and errors now besetting this issue on marriage, we need to reiterate that marriage is meant only for a man and a woman. There’s no such thing as same-sex marriage. Why? Because marriage is meant primarily for procreation of children. 

 And it has be exclusive—that is, between one man and one woman. It cannot be polygamous. Why? Because marriage is based on a love that involves the use of the body. Since in love, everything is supposed to be given to the beloved by the lover, once that body is given to the beloved, it cannot anymore be shared with another partner. Unlike in a love that is spiritual, the more people we love, the better. 

 But more important to realize about marriage is that it is actually a path to holiness. It is not just a purely human and temporal affair. It has great potentials for the parties involved to pursue the common goal of ours to attain holiness, our identification with God through Christ, since we are all God’s image and likeness. 

 That is why everything has to be done to make marriage achieve its fullest dignity. And that means that we have to purify and elevate the love that is the very germ of marriage to the supernatural order as it should be. 

 That love has to develop from simply being natural and body-emotion-world reliant to being more and more spiritual and supernatural, driven by grace rather than by mere natural forces. 

 With the sacrament of marriage, the love between husband and wife is already guaranteed to have all the graces needed to make that marriage reach its fullness. What is needed is the faithful and generous correspondence of the parties concerned to those graces. 

 The parties involved should realize that their love for each other should reflect and channel the very love Christ has for the Church. Yes, the union of husband and wife should be like that of Christ toward the Church. (cfr. Eph 5,22-33)

Christ’s anger meant for our conversion

From time to time, we see Christ showing anger over certain issues. This only validates the fact that anger is not necessarily bad, since it is part of our human nature and definitely also of the supernatural character of our life. We just have to be very careful about it, seeing to it that our anger is righteous anger, and not just the anger of a brute animal. 

 When Christ got mad over some leading Jews of his time, (cfr. Lk 10,13-16) that was because despite the many good things Christ showed them, they persisted in their own self-righteous ways and even went to the extent not only of not believing in Christ but also of finally condemning him to death. 

 We too should feel the anger of Christ, since we cannot deny that despite everything that Christ has done for us, we continue to be erratic in our ways, falling into all kinds of anomalies and sins. By feeling Christ’s anger, we should also feel the need for us to have another round of repentance and conversion. 

 Let’s just be frank about ourselves. We are all sinners! No matter how much we try to be good and holy—and to a certain extent, we can actually manage to achieve that ideal—we can still find ourselves falling into sin, if not big ones, then small ones, which can actually be more dangerous since we can tend to take them for granted, until we get used to them and would not feel anymore the need for repentance and conversion. 

 We have to understand that conversion is a continuing affair for all of us in this life. We can never say, if we have to follow by what our Christian faith tells us, that we are so good as to need conversion no more. We are all sinners, St. John said. And even the just man, as the Bible said, falls seven times in a day. 

 Besides, it is this sense of continuing conversion that would really ensure us that whatever we do, whatever would happen to us, including our failures and defeats, would redound to what is truly good for the parties concerned and for everybody else in general. 

 That’s because conversion brings us and everything that we have done in life to a reconciliation with God, from whom we come and to whom we go. 

 Also, Christ’s anger is actually a call for us to practice sincerity and consistency in our life, avoiding even the slightest trace of hypocrisy and double life. In fact, we should develop what is called as unity of life, rooted on our earnest effort to identify ourselves with Christ who is the pattern of our humanity, the savior of our damaged humanity. 

 We have to understand that only with Christ can we aspire to have unity and consistency in our life, one that is not rigid. Rather it is a consistency and unity that knows how to adapt itself properly given the different and changing conditions and circumstances of our life. 

 So, we really have to earnestly pursue the effort of living and defending our Christian identity all the time. We should not be afraid to show our Christian identity at all times and in all situations. We should not be Christian by name only, but also by our thoughts, desires and deeds, and in all aspects of our life. We should not be Christian in good times only, but also, and most especially, in bad times. We should not be Christian only in our sacred moments, but also in our mundane activities.