With faith, miracles can happen

THAT’S the conclusion we can draw from that gospel episode where a woman with a 12-year illness was cured instantly, and a dead girl was made to rise back to life again. (cfr. Mt 9,18-26) 

 These two miraculous events highlight Christ’s power, showing us how a strong faith can have a transformative power, and how Christ, without doubt, has authority over death. Both events reinforce Christ’s identity as our Savior, and that he is capable of healing what is sick, restoring what is lost, and ultimately conquering death itself. 

 These two events also show how compassionate and merciful Christ is towards the suffering and the desperate. They also highlight the fact that Christ always responds to our needs of healing and restoration, a clear expression of love. 

 But we have to remember that it is faith that would let us enter the spiritual and supernatural world, enabling us to receive God’s favor, and letting us share in God’s wisdom and power. Remember those stirring words of Christ: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove from there, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.” (Mt 17,20) 

 Without faith, in spite of our keenest intelligence, we will miss much of the more important aspects of our life as we would only be restricted to the here and now, the material and the temporal. We would be left with our own human devices that can only do so much. 

 Especially in our special needs and persistent human miseries that nowadays are getting more common, we need to follow the example of the men and women, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the sick, etc., who did all to get close to Christ and to beg. Some even had to climb to the roof and cut a portion there to be able to be near Christ. 

 This is the pattern we have to follow. We have to eagerly seek Christ and importune him with all our might, accompanying our pleas with external signs of our fervent faith and love for him. 

 We need to understand that as the very beginning of our life with God, our life in the Spirit which is a supernatural life more than just a natural life, our Christian faith has to be taken care of, nourished and developed to full maturity. 

 We need to be more aware of this duty and develop the appropriate attitude and skills to carry out this responsibility effectively. We have to go beyond mere good intentions or being merely theoretical in order to be truly practical and vitally engaged with this obligation. 

 Faith is a tremendous gift from God who starts to share with us what he has, what he knows about himself and about ourselves. It gives us the global picture of reality, covering both the temporal and the eternal, the material and the spiritual, the natural and supernatural dimensions of our life. 

 Faith contains the medicine and the remedy to all our spiritual inadequacies and illnesses. It is what is required for miracles to happen, as attested many times in the Gospel. 

 Yes, it is only with a strong and insistent faith that we can see the impossible becoming possible, and to see and even experience the many marvels God always likes do for us. Miracles happen even up to now because God’s love and care for us never ends!

Abundant harvest but few laborers

THAT gospel episode where Christ appointed 72 other disciples and sent them to places where Christ intended to visit (cfr. Lk 10,1-12.17-20) reminds us that if we too consider ourselves as disciples of Christ, we should also realize that this commissioning is also addressed to us. 

 We need to give utmost attention to this task because first of all, as disciples of Christ, we cannot help but also get involved in the continuing work of human redemption of Christ. He is practically begging us to do so, especially when he said: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” 

 That’s because if we are truly Christians, we should be involved in Christ’s mission here on earth. Christ’s mission and concerns should also be ours. We have to realize that Christ treats us the way he treats himself precisely because we are patterned after him. 

 That’s also why we have been endowed with intelligence and will which, together always with God’s grace, would enable us to know and love others the way Christ loves all of us. And in this regard, we know that Christ’s love goes all the way to offering his life for us. That’s how we should love one another. That’s how we as disciples of his should be willing to love everybody, including our enemies. 

 In that gospel episode, Christ told his disciples of what they should only bring along, as well as the difficulties and dangers they should expect along the way. “I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals,” he said, somehow making them to understand that he would take care of whatever conditions they might find themselves in pursuing this task. 

 Yes, there would be suffering, but in the end, Christ would know how to turn everything negative into something constructive and redemptive. He was implying that he would be sharing his powers with them. As it turned out, the disciples where amazed at what they accomplished. "Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name," they said. 

 We have to realize more sharply that we need to be burning with zeal in carrying out our apostolic duty. That’s because the apostolic panorama and challenge is getting increasingly tremendous and complicated. Yes, we should always ask for God’s grace to fulfill this duty, but we need to acquire the appropriate attitudes and skills as well. 

 Nowadays, with all the absorbing developments around, it is very easy for us to think that we are doing many things when, in fact, we are falling into the deceptive dynamics of self-indulgence. 

 We have to be most wary of this danger that is clearly becoming widespread. Self-indulgence is a constant threat, especially these days when good and evil are so mixed up that we would mostly likely be left confused and easily taken by sweet poisons that today’s new things readily offer. 

 We need to be very discriminating in dealing with these new developments, knowing how to discern what is good and useful for the apostolate from what can simply be a distraction which can appear to us also as something useful. The ways of evil usually assume the appearance of some good. 

 Thus, we should try to come out with a concrete apostolic plan everyday, so that however things go during the day, we can have clear apostolic goal to pursue, and thus fulfill the task Christ is entrusting us.

A true Christian always cares for sinners

THIS is the lesson we can draw from that gospel episode where some Pharisees told Christ’s disciples: “Why does your master eat with publicans and sinners?” (Mt 9,11) 

 To which Christ responded: “They who are healthy need not a physician, but they who are ill.” He then proceeded to say: “I have not come to call the just, but sinners.” (Mt 9,13) 

 If we truly have the mind and heart of Christ, then we should be eager to look after those who are lost, far away from the true faith, or even those who consider themselves non-believers and open enemies of God. 

 Again, this is a tall order, but we can always do something about it. We should just develop the appropriate knowledge and virtues to capture that spirit of Christ who like the Good Shepherd will always look for the lost sheep. 

 When we actually do not go all the way in our effort to identify ourselves with Christ as completely as possible, we would end up like those Pharisees of old who were openly self-righteous and quick to judge others based only on some human and worldly standards or criteria. 

 We have to remember that God, as Christ told us clearly, cares for everyone of us. He does not make distinction of persons insofar as loving is concerned. His love is universal. It covers all. 

 This is the thought that should be with us everytime we see the differences and the great variety of conditions we have among ourselves. Yes, we have to acknowledge our differences, our advantages and disadvantages, etc., but we should not forget that God loves all of us and that we too should love everybody else the way God loves all. 

 Let us remind ourselves that our differences are meant to develop, if not enrich, everyone through the dynamics of complementation and supplementation. Let’s see to it that we are not unduly entangled with the unavoidable tension and conflict, and that we manage to go past them and see the bigger picture. 

 What is incumbent on us is to give what we have, what has been entrusted to us by God—our talents and other gifts—as much as we could for the common good. This is where our true joy and self-fulfillment can be found. It’s in giving that we truly love, and that we truly get blessed. 

 We have to develop this kind of love that would urge us to look after the lost sheep. Do we know, for example how to deal with an unbeliever, an atheist or agnostic? Or a smart alecky fellow who actually has great potentials to help but is oblivious of his duty to be concerned with the lives of others? 

 We have to be wary of the subtle temptation to classify people without knowing how to put them together in one communion as we all ought to be, with God as the principle, end, pattern and power for that communion. 

 Everyone should be concerned for the common good, both temporal and eternal, material and spiritual, and should know how to work together in solidarity and subsidiarity. 

 We should be wary of things that would stir up our emotions and feelings such that we follow the playbooks of those ideologies that are already detached or even opposed to our faith and true charity. In this, we have to help one another.