Always be thankful

THIS is a basic attitude to have. It corresponds to the radical

reality that we all depend on God for everything, and in a relative

way, also on others. We have to be wary of the many things that can

undermine this truth.

These days, we can say that we have a convergence of many factors

that can create a perfect storm to desensitize us of this duty. There

are now many distractions that can grab our attention and bring us the

grip of self-absorption.

Our capacity to produce and even to “create” things has tremendously

increased with the great progress of our sciences, arts and

technologies. This development, while having many advantages, can have

the downside of making us more self-absorbed too and to feel

self-sufficient. We would feel less beholden to anyone, including God.

Our awareness of our need to go to God, to feel dependent on him and

indebted to him and to others is slowly but steadily weakened. I don’t

think it’s an exaggeration or a baseless claim to say that fewer

people are saying ‘thank you’ to others, and much less, to God.

But as dramatized in the gospel which talks about Christ meeting 10

lepers (Lk 17,11-19), Christ expects us to be thankful. In this

particular episode, the matter involved is not just a simple human

need, but an extraordinary one, the cure of leprosy. And yet, of the

10, only 1 returned to thank Christ, and he was even a foreigner. The

other 9 forgot, in spite of the great favor given to them.

The story is obviously an image of our usual predicament. We often

fail to thank God, and others, even when we are given a favor that we

can say is not a basic need, but a big, optional one.

To be grateful is a necessity for us. It does us a lot of good. It

keeps alive the reality that we depend on God and others for

everything. It strengthens our intimacy with him, and our awareness

that whatever happens in our life, God is always in control.

It makes us keenly aware of the all-powerful and merciful providence

of God. With that providence, we would know that even the dark,

negative things in life have meaning and purpose. They, at least, give

excitement and beauty in life, because life, without these elements

and when it only has all things bright and rosy, would be boring.

It keeps us humble and simple, traits and virtues that are always

necessary to us, otherwise we start inventing things and distorting

reality. It keeps our feet on the ground even as we let our mind and

heart soar to high heavens.

It makes our heart tender and at the same time strong, a perfect foil

to our tendency to be hardened or to get lost as we tackle life’s many

challenges. In other words, it helps us to maintain our humanity well,

resistant to the temptation to become mechanical and robotic as we

face life’s trials and hardships.

It helps us to be mindful of others, thus strengthening the unity

among ourselves. It will make us more attentive and appreciative of

others and of what they actually do to us, even if they commit some

mistakes. It will tend to loosen the grip of our self-absorption and

the unhealthy sense of self-sufficiency that leads us to selfishness.

With our weaknesses, temptations, distractions and the many other

unfavorable factors we have to contend with these days, we really

would need to exert deliberate effort to cultivate this practice and

habit of being thankful. We should not take it for granted,

considering it unnecessary, superfluous or optional.

We can always start with the little things that happen every day to

develop this attitude of being thankful. If we get to consider things

very closely and objectively, we have every reason to be thankful with

every breath we make.

Let’s hope that we can take this business seriously. Let’s not allow

any opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to pass. And let’s see to it that

we do it sincerely, coming from the heart, avoiding the pitfall of

doing it mechanically.

For this, we need to train our heart to be truly thankful, quick to

realize its basis and purpose. For sure, we would be making a very

beautiful world if we manage to be consistently grateful. We would

have an environment that is healthy and vibrant, quite immunized to

the evils of this world.

We would know how to be at home with God while we explore the world.

Gifts to one another

WITH Christmas just a few weeks to go, I am sure the idea
of gift-giving is very much in our mind. We either look forward to it
or are scared of it, or both. We know that something in us wants to
give gifts to our loved ones, but obviously there are some constraints
that we have to contend with. Availability of funds, for example.

            This is where we have to be reminded of the whole theology
of gift-giving, which is not meant to spoil our spontaneous instinct
to give, but rather to deepen, purify and strengthen it, so that that
instinct would truly correspond to our ultimate dignity as persons and
children of God. That way we avoid being played around simply by
worldly motives.

            Again, let’s acknowledge that in the end it’s our faith
that gives us the whole picture about this matter. That’s why we have
to go into the theology of it, and not just follow our blind impulses
and the intoxicating trends and the passing fads and fashions of the
times. It’s faith that gives us what is right and wrong about it.

            We cannot deny—the pieces of evidence are just
aplenty—that this whole business of gift-giving is now often corrupted
by the viruses of commercialism and materialism, often provoking us to
envy, vanity and the like. The natural human desire to give is now
practically distorted by these powerful evil forces that seem to rule
the world today.

            Let’s do our part to clarify and purify things to bring
out once again the true beauty of gift-giving. What is its basis, what
is its purpose, its pattern are some questions we need to answer
properly. Is it necessary and to be lived all the time, and how can it
be practicable in any circumstance we may find ourselves in?

            It’s good that we have clear ideas about these points so
that we would be confident that we are doing things right. We avoid
having a fatalistic attitude to life. Rather, with this sure knowledge
of what we are doing, we would be fostering our true freedom.

            Truth is we have to be gifts to one another. That’s simply
because we have been made by God out of sheer goodness, of complete
gratuitousness. And since we are his image and likeness, we have to
realize that we too are expected to treat God and others out of sheer
goodness and gratuitousness. That’s what being a gift is.

            When we do something, we have to see to it that our
primary intention that should give the color to other intentions we
may have is to do that thing out of love of God, out of sheer
goodness.

            This should be the constant and ultimate motive for all of
our thoughts, words and actions even if this motive is also
conditioned by some practical purposes. We should not allow this
radical motive to be compromised by the other practical motives that
we also are interested.

            This truth about ourselves is somehow dramatized in that
gospel passage where Christ encourages us to say, after doing
something, even something heroic, “We are unprofitable servants, we
have done what we were obliged to do.” (Lk 17,10)

            It’s a good slogan to keep in mind, a most helpful
reminder of how our attitude should be with respect to whatever deeds
and accomplishments we may have in life. Yes, we are just doing what
we ought to do, as God our Creator has designed and sanctioned it to
us.

            Everything has to be done as an act of love, as an act of
gratuitous self-giving, as a gift. We have to so strengthen this
conviction as to enable us to resist the common temptation of doing
things because of the more practical reasons like to earn money, to
attain a certain sense of security, to amass wealth, power, fame, etc.

            We have to remember that whatever we do can never be fully
quantified and translated in terms of money and some worldly criteria,
because our work is first of all a spiritual affair, requiring faith,
hope and charity. As such, it cannot be reduced to some quantifiable
terms, though, human as we are, with material and temporal needs, we
make what we consider as fair estimations of what is due to us
materially.

            This is why we always need to rectify our intentions when
we work, so that we can always fulfill the basic law governing us—that
is, that we do everything as a gift, as an act of gratuitous love,
proper to our dignity.

Engaging the world

IN fact, it is not only to engage the world, but also to
love it, and as one saint would put it, to love it passionately. We
need to have the proper attitude toward the world as it is, with all
the good and evil that it has, with all its original beauty it still
has and the ugly deformations it now suffers.

            As can be gleaned from Christ’s prayer before his passion,
we are in the world though not of the world. We are not supposed to be
taken away from it, but neither are we supposed to be worldly, that
is, to live in the world as if there is no God, as if the world is our
ultimate domain whose developments, without reference to a God-given
law, would comprise the rule that would govern us.

            Obviously, we need to be most discerning and prudent so as
not to get confused and lost. But we have to start with a healthy
attitude toward it. We have to avoid being fundamentally negative
about it, treating it as nothing other but a place of sin, of
disorder, or where we can do absolutely anything without any reference
to God.

            To be prudent in our dealings with the world is never an
excuse to be indifferent to it. We may have to separate ourselves from
the world from time to time—all this as a matter of prudence given the
limitations of our human condition—but we need to be immersed in the
affairs of the world.

            We need to understand the true nature and character of the
world, its origin, its purpose, its history, etc., so that we would
know the intrinsic relationship we have with the world.

            We cannot limit ourselves to seeing it merely in its
physicality alone, nor in the twists and turns of its historical and
cultural development, nor in its exciting social, economic and
political aspects, nor in the highs and lows of its arts and sciences.

            We have to see it first of all from the point of view of
our faith that reveals to us how it came from its creator, what
designs its creator has for it, what to expect from it. This is the
basic parameter to use in framing the whole business of how to engage
the world.

            For sure, the world did not just come to exist
spontaneously. It came with a purpose. And the purpose ultimately is
for our own proper development. Everything else in creation, in the
universe, is actually made for our own good, we who are the
masterpiece of God’s creation.

            From here, we can already see the range and scope of our
own personal, social, spiritual development. We have to understand
that our growth toward maturity and perfection has to go along with
the range and scope of whatever developments there are in the world.

            That’s because the world is one important and
indispensable locus where God and us meet. God speaks to us through
the events of the world. He certainly may approve or disapprove of the
happenings there.

            This is not to mention that with his providence, he is
always governing and guiding the world to its proper end. And we need
to cooperate in that providence, since we have been created in his
image and likeness, and as such, have been made also as stewards of
the whole of creation.

            We need to be more aware of this truth about ourselves in
relation to the world, since we tend to ignore it or to take it
lightly, and thus fail to correspond fully to our duties. Especially
these days when there simply are a proliferation of new hot-button
issues, not to mention the usual problems we have like poverty,
injustice and the like.

            Even if one is given a certain charism and vocation that
leads him to separate himself from the world, as is the case of some
hermits, monks and other religious, contemplative persons, he should
understand that that charism and vocation of his is meant for the for
the good of all men and women all over the world.

            His isolation is simply a tactical element in his life,
not meant to isolate him from the things of the world, but rather to
immerse him, in some mysterious ways, in the world’s affairs.

            For most of us, though, we are meant to live in the middle
of the world. We just have to be aware of our duty to bring Christ and
his message to it. This is how we can properly engage and love the
world.