“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see”

THAT’S in the gospel of St. Luke (10,23) where Christ said these words to his disciples in private. What Christ was trying to tell them was that the true knowledge of God is a gift of divine mercy, not a reward for human wisdom. It is granted to those who receive it with childlike humility. 

 Only when we are simple and humble like little children that we open ourselves to God’s grace. It’s when we make ourselves receptive and responsive to the God’s abiding providence over our life. 

 We really need to remain childlike even as we grow in age and stature, and even as we accumulate already quite a significant amount of knowledge with our exposure to the world and the life in general. 

 Yes, children and heaven are almost synonymous to each other. No wonder we feel like we are in heaven every time we see children around. Every time a baby is born, we are very happy because we somehow know that he just did not come out of his mother’s womb, but rather from the very hands of God who created him before the parents procreated him. 

 In spite of the many limitations of children, what makes them always desirable is their pure, innocent heart, incapable of malice, ambition, pride and haughtiness. They are a source of many other good things. 

 Their heart is always trusting in the Lord always, just like a little kid is always confident with his father. Faith and hope easily grow and acquire strength when nurtured in a child's heart. It's this attitude that leads them to go on and move on no matter what, for life to them could only be an adventure of discoveries. 

 Obviously, the privilege of seeing and hearing what the prophets could not should make the disciples, and now, us, to be ever grateful and to be more committed to carry out the mission now entrusted to the Church. That’s the only way to keep ourselves seeing and hearing what God wants us to see, hear and know. 

 And so, let us realize ever more deeply that we are meant to do apostolate, since that is in the very heart of Christ’s mission which should also be ours. Therefore, we need to sharpen our awareness of our apostolic duty, since left to our own devices, we would rather give our complete attention solely to ourselves. This tendency is a consequence of our sinfulness. But originally, before man’s fall, we tend to love and care for one another. 

 To develop this apostolic concern therefore entails sacrifice. We should not be surprised if in pursuing it we are challenged, faced with difficulties and asked to do self-denials and other forms of sacrifice. 

 We just have to hold firm on our Christian conviction, together with the continuing petition for God’s grace and the generous discharge of our human effort, that to do apostolate is the will of God. He is bent in accomplishing it. It’s his first concern to contend with the difficulties. Ours is simply to cooperate. 

 We have to continually ask ourselves if our thoughts and desires bear an eminently apostolic character. If not, let’s immediately do the necessary adjustments and corrections. 

 We have to embark also on a life-long effort to acquire apostolic skills—how to make friends and deepen that friendship, how to pursue full blast the supernatural apostolic goal of our life while respecting our natural conditions, etc. 

 The apostolic zeal should be revved to the max!

Routine and new initiatives

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone! 

 As we open another year, let us first of all be thankful for everything that took place in the last year, regardless of what color they came, and look forward to this new year with great desire to do a lot of good things. 

 We certainly have to continue with our usual routine which had been helpful in filling our day with meaningful and fruitful work, but let us not be unmindful of the new challenges that certainly would also present themselves to us. 

 Let’s remember that the world is constantly evolving, and even if there are different times and conditions and things would just be the same in the end, there will always be new things that we need to deal with properly. 

 For us to discern these new things, we need to be most attentive to what God is prompting us in our prayer. He is always showing us the way for us to go. We should be quick to capture these promptings and act on them, coming up with plans and strategies that would involve new initiatives even as we retain the usual routine we have. 

 To take the initiative can only mean that we are following God’s primal command, the one given to our first parents: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.” (Gen 1,28) It is a command that has not become obsolete nor superseded. It remains effective, reaffirmed in the commandments given later. 

 To take the initiative can only mean that we should be discovering something new, conquering and covering new territories. It need not mean something new in a quantitative sense. It can mean something new in the qualitative sense. “Non multa sed multum,” goes a Latin expression that highlights that point. “Not many things, but much.” 

 So, it is possible that this duty of taking the initiative can be carried out even if we are doing the same things everyday. We may be producing the same quantity of things everyday, but there should be growth in the quality of the things produced, of the way we do things, and of the way we are. 

 In the end, taking the initiative should redound to our becoming more and more a child of God. There should be growth of love, in any and all of its manifestations, because love is the essence of God and it is what makes us more and more like God as we should. 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to be contented at a certain level of human accomplishment. We have to do more to be more like God. That’s because love is not just sweet words, sweet feelings, but rather concrete deeds. And the character of true love involves being open to unlimited self-giving. It is given without measure. 

 Everyday, we have to take initiatives. Otherwise, our spiritual growth gets stalled, stunted or stagnant. And later on, our soul becomes a breeding ground for everything that is the opposite of love. 

 We have to take initiatives in developing our spiritual and apostolic life. We can never say enough—that we are already ok. There will always be new challenges. That is due to our weakened and erratic human condition. God will always be asking for more even as he gives us more graces. He will always be asking us to look for new frontiers in our effort of personal sanctification and apostolate.

God provides for all our needs

WE should never forget this most important truth of our faith. Especially in our most difficult moments, when we find ourselves helpless and on the verge of discouragement, we should remember that God who is our Creator, and more than that, a loving Father to all of us, is always there to provide what we need. His ways may not exactly be what we want, but he is always around to help us. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our faith in that gospel episode where a centurion begged Christ to cure his paralytic servant. (cfr. Lk 8,5-11) And when Christ told him that he was going to his house, Christ was amazed at how the centurion reacted that showed his great faith in Christ. 

 This was the reply of the centurion: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’” Of course, the centurion got what he requested. 

 As long as our faith is strong, deep and abiding, there is nothing in our life, no matter how difficult and humanly unsolvable, that cannot be taken care of by Christ. Thus, in our moments of helplessness, we should just ask God for help and abandon ourselves in his hands. 

 Let’s always remember that God is with us all the time. He can never stay away from us. As our Creator and Father, he will never abandon us no matter how estranged we might be from him, since he is at the very core of our existence itself. Our life is actually his life first of all. He shares his life and nature with us. That is what is meant by being the image and likeness of God that we are. 

 Ours is simply to live our life with God, always following his will and ways. We are simply stewards of our own life. God is its owner, and so, we are answerable to him as to how we manage it according to his will and ways. 

 And as an omnipotent owner of our life, he provides us with everything that we need. He always has all the solutions to our problems, giving us relief in our difficulties, challenges and trials, and assuring us of final victory irrespective of how the drama of our life goes, as long as we remain faithful to him. 

 And so, when we are faced with our limitations and a state of helplessness, we should just be ready for them and know not only how to deal with them but also how to derive something good from them. In these instances of the hard predicaments, for example, when we seem to be at a loss as to what to do, we should just see at what God does, after we have done all things possible to solve our problems. 

 We need to trust in God’s providence and mercy. We have to learn to live a spirit of abandonment in the hands of God. Yes, if we have faith in God, in his wisdom and mercy, in his unfailing love for us, we know that everything will always work out for the good. If we are with God, we can always dominate whatever suffering can come our way in the same manner that Christ absorbed all his passion and death on the cross.