Preparation for our definitive state of life

DECEMBER 8 this year, usually marking the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, is also the 2nd Sunday of Advent which takes precedence over the Marian solemnity. 

 This happy coincidence, through the gospel reading of the day, (cfr. Lk 3,1-6) somehow reminds us that through the merits of Christ’s redemptive work, we need to prepare ourselves, as St. John the Baptist tells us, for our definite state of life as exemplified by our Lady, our Mother, who is now glorified in heaven, body and soul. 

 What our Lady is now enjoying is also what is meant for us as our definitive state of life when we truly become God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature. We can just imagine the kind of preparation we have to undertake to achieve that status. 

 And so, we just have to pay close attention to what St. John the Baptist is telling us in the gospel of the day. “John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the books of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’” (Lk 3,3-6) 

 We should heed this call to repentance and conversion which is a constant need of ours, especially these days when, given the temper of the times, this call has become very urgent and most necessary, because it looks like it is largely ignored. 

 We should never think that we do not need further repentance and conversion because we are already good enough. As long as we are still in this world, there is no level in our spiritual life that can be considered as good enough. It’s time we remind ourselves of that old saying, ‘the good is the enemy of the best.’ 

 We need to move on always, to continue conquering new frontiers in our spiritual life which is a matter of growing in our love for God and for others. Let’s avoid falling into self-indulgence, complacency and lukewarmness. These will put a stop, or at least to divert us, in our continuing journey toward our eternal home and they do it with some lulling and most tricky appeal. 

 With love, there is actually no limit. It will continue to make new demands on us, because life itself will also make new challenges and trials on us. Let’s never forget that our life will always be some kind of warfare. We have to contend with many enemies of our soul. 

 What may motivate us to go through this process of continuing repentance and conversion is to always consider the significance of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady which reminds us that like Mary, we are actually meant to be sinless. By going through this process, we would be moving toward the ideal of becoming immaculate also, like our Mother Mary, as God wants us to be. 

 Mary’s Immaculate Conception should make us feel urged to persevere in our struggle to attain that state of sinlessness, which is another way of saying that we are meant to pursue our total identification with Christ, the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. It is not supposed to make us feel privileged and entitled. Quite the contrary. 

It is supposed to demand everything from us, so that we can merit the effects of Christ’s redemptive work.

Faith gives us the real 20-20 vision

“HE touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you.’ And their eyes were opened.” (Mt 9,29-30) That’s what Christ told the blind men who begged him to cure them of their blindness. 

 We need to realize that it is faith, more than anything else, that would cure our real blindness which is not simply a physical thing but more of the spiritual and supernatural kind. Let’s remember that the reality that governs us is not simply the material and the natural, where we may have a perfect vision, but also and mainly the spiritual and the supernatural. 

 In this regard, we have to imitate the example of the two blind men who begged Christ for a cure of their blindness. Obviously, we have to first of all acknowledge our own blindness with respect to the spiritual and supernatural realities that govern our life. We cannot deny that with our proneness to fall into all forms of carnality and worldliness, we become blind to the spiritual and supernatural realities. 

 Our main problem is that we often fail to acknowledge this fact of life, especially when we happen to be gifted with high intelligence and other talents. With such condition, we fail to realize that our intelligence and will, our talents and the other gifts God has endowed us, are actually meant to enable us to enter into the spiritual and supernatural world, and ultimately to God. We are actually poised for that purpose. 

 When we use our faculties to engage only with the natural things, which we often do, we would actually be misusing them. That’s when we become very vulnerable to all kinds of anomalies and irregularities. We would have no ample defenses against the usual weaknesses and temptations we have in this world. 

 In fact, we can say that we are more blind the more gifted we are, because this latter status usually sheds some light that blinds us from the spiritual and supernatural realities rather than clarifies things for us. It tends to take us away from God rather than lead us to him. 

 We have to be most careful when perhaps because of our education, our experience, our position, among other things, we feel that we would already have enough reason to make ourselves our own standard of what is true, good and beautiful. 

 It’s always good to acknowledge our blindness so we can see things clearly through God’s grace. That’s simply because it’s when we acknowledge our blindness, deficiency and inadequacy to tackle our temporal affairs that we attract God’s grace, his light, his wisdom, his strength. 

 That is why we should always feel the need to pray, to do many other spiritual exercises, like having spiritual direction and confession, availing of the sacraments, undertaking continuing spiritual formation and ascetical struggle, to keep our natural faculties properly animated by faith and God’s grace, enabling them to enter into the spiritual and supernatural world. 

 If our worldly knowledge does not make our faith in God grow stronger, it would be a dangerous kind of knowledge. We have to correct and purify it immediately, giving it the right motive and purpose which is none other than to give glory to God. Otherwise, it would be a knowledge that would simply be at the service of our self-indulgence. 

 And when that knowledge cannot cope anymore with the challenges of our life, that’s when we would enter into all kinds of anomalies and irregularities leading us to issues of mental health, depression, and all kinds of justifications to rationalize acts and positions that usually are considered by our common sense as perversions.

Our need for deep reflection

WE have to realize that we have this need for deep reflection. Thus, we have to set aside some time where we can do that. Otherwise, we may be doing a lot of things but still miss what is truly important for us. I think it was St. Augustine who once said, what good would racer be if he runs very fast but does it out of track? He’ll never reach the finish line! 

 Especially in our increasingly fast paced world, we have this great need for reflection. We have to have some time for a period of recollection and spiritual retreat if only to have an atmosphere of reflection and prayer that help us contemplate on the mysteries of God, letting us enter into the life of the Lord and learn to imitate him according to our circumstances, with the light and strength that God grants. 

 This period of reflection would enable us to meditate on the life of Christ, the pattern of our humanity, by reading and listening to his word as recorded in the Gospels that would hopefully lead us to translate Christ’s word into action. 

 Thus, from time to time, we should withdraw from our usual activities and concerns, and go into what is called a spiritual retreat where we try to get a closer if also global picture of the current state of our life. 

 We need to see if things are going well, if we are still in the right direction, if we still have a clear vision of the over-all purpose of our life. We can’t deny that there are new developments in the world that give us new challenges, trials and other possibilities, and we just have to be ready to handle them properly. 

 We also need to see how things can be improved or even radically changed, since definitely there will always be things in our life at any given moment that need to be given such attention. In the end, we have to realize that a retreat is a great occasion to have another conversion. We have to see that. We have to feel urged by that. If we don’t feel that way, then let’s pray that we be given the relevant grace from God. 

 We have to understand that the growth and development of our spiritual life, of our relationship with God and with others which can only take place if we learn to love them more and more, will always be an ongoing affair in our whole life. It will always be a work in progress. We can never say that we have reached the point where there is no more room for improvement. 

 It is in a retreat when we can afford to savor the joy and beauty of silence and the spirit of recollection, reflection and discernment. Silence helps one to see the basic structure of his mind and heart, and the objects to which they get oriented. This is where he sees whether these human powers are in their proper condition and are properly used. 

 Silence also facilitates internalizing things, attuning our senses and faculties to their proper object. It also merges us with the stream of time, allowing us to run from the present to the past and then to the future, rectifying and refocusing things along the way, until we reach the doorsteps of eternity and infinity itself. 

 The need for the spirit recollection during the retreat simply indicates that our life consists of different aspects and levels that we have to orchestrate to be able to reach our final end.