Loving God is loving others

LET’S be clear about this. We cannot love God truly if we

don’t love our neighbor, whoever he may be. St. John said it directly:

“If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For

he that loves not his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom

he has not seen?” (1 Jn 4,20)

            We are reminded of this truth of our faith in Pope

Francis’s latest Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate. He urges

us that to truly love God or to be truly holy, we have to serve the

others by living especially the beatitudes and by doing works of

mercy.

            Paragraph 98 of that document says it very well: “If I

encounter a person outdoors on a cold night, I can view him or her as

an annoyance, an idler, an obstacle in my path, a troubling sight, a

problem for politicians to sort out, or even a piece of refuse of

cluttering a public space.

            “Or I can respond with faith and charity, and see in this

person a human being with a dignity identical to my own, a creature

infinitely loved by the Father, an image of God, a brother or sister

redeemed by Jesus Christ. That is what it is to be a Christian! Can

holiness somehow be understood apart from this lively recognition of

the dignity of each human being?”

            Always asking for God’s grace, we need to learn how to put

ourselves in the place of the others, regardless of how they are,

since this is what Christ, our way, our truth and life, is showing us

in his life here on earth.

            He, in fact, identified himself more solicitously with the

poor and the sinner as can be gleaned from the many episodes in the

gospel. He precisely was turned off with those who were

self-righteous, those who exuded an obnoxious holier-than-thou

attitude.

            We need to understand then that our path toward our human

and Christian perfection is traced by the way we identify ourselves

with everyone else in the same manner that Christ identified himself

with each one of us.

            We all know that this is not easy to do, and that is why

we need to be asking for God’s grace always, because only in that

condition would we be able to approximate this ideal that is proper to

us.

            Let us remember that, as the document also reminds us, it

is always God who takes the initiative before we can correspond to his

will and ways. “The Church has repeatedly taught,” it says, “that we

are justified not by our own works or efforts, but by the grace of the

Lord, who always takes the initiative.” (52)

            We should therefore be always mindful of what God in the

Holy Spirit is trying to prompt us in a given situation. We should not

forget that God always intervenes in our life and he is also giving us

the means for us to correspond to this will in that particular

situation.

            The important thing to remember is that God wants us to

love everyone, including enemies and those whom we may consider for

one reason or another as unlovable. We have to train ourselves to

conform ourselves to this basic will of God for us.

            Here is what Christ said in this regard: “Love your

enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children

of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and

the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you

love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the

tax collectors doing that?...Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly

Father is perfect.” (Mt 5, 44-48)

Beware of fake forms of holiness

THAT’S one of the things Pope Francis mentioned in his

latest Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate. We have to really

know what true sanctity is, how it is attained, where to find it, how

to sustain it and make it grow, etc.

            We cannot deny that there are many fake forms of holiness

besetting our world today, and we have to know how to identify them

and avoid them. One of the fake forms is what he called as Gnosticism,

actually a very old heresy that continues to hound us today but in

very subtle ways.

            In paragraph 36 of the document, the Pope describes

Gnosticism as “a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a

certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are

meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one

imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings.”

            Then in paragraph 37, he points out the consequence of

this erroneous approach. “Throughout the history of the Church,” he

said, “it has always been clear that a person’s perfection is measured

not by the information or knowledge they possess, but by the depth of

their charity.

            “Gnostics do not understand this, because they judge

others based on their ability to understand the complexity of certain

doctrines. They think of the intellect as separate from the flesh, and

thus become incapable of touching Christ’s suffering flesh in others,

locked up as they are in an encyclopaedia of abstractions. In the end,

by disembodying the mystery, they prefer ‘a God without Christ, a

Christ without the Church, a Church without her people.”

            We need to be clear about this. While knowledge of the

doctrine of the faith is indispensable, it should not be separated

from the most important element of sanctity which is charity.

            That’s why St. Paul said: “These three remain: faith, hope

and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13,13) Earlier,

he said: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not

have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have

the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,

and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I

am nothing.” (1-2)

            And this love, let’s never forget it, should be the love

shown and lived by Christ himself and commanded by him to be the kind

of love we have for each other. “Love one another as I have loved

you,” he said. (Jn 13,34)

            And what kind of love is shown and lived by Christ? A love

that goes all the way to offer his own life for our sake, a love that

knows how to bear all the sins of men. It’s not a love that is very

concerned about the requirements of justice, because in the end, in

spite of our best efforts, we know that we can never fully meet these

requirements.

            And so we have to see to it that our growth in the

knowledge of the doctrine of our faith should lead us first of all in

the growth of the charity as shown and lived by Christ. If we notice

that our doctrinal knowledge makes us feel superior to others, leading

us to look down on them, to be rash in our judgments, let’s be

convinced that we are on the wrong track toward true holiness. We

would be following a fake one.

            True holiness should make us always humble, compassionate,

patient, merciful, willing to bear the burden of the others, never

mind if in our human standards, things seem to be unfair. True

holiness is living the beatitudes as articulated by Christ.

Saints also committed sins

THAT is one thing for sure. Never think that to be a

saint, one has to be spotlessly clean from beginning to end. We need

to disabuse ourselves from this false idea of holiness.

  

            In fact, the opposite is quite true. To be a saint, one

has to be prepared to be hounded by all sorts of temptations and to be

buffeted by all kinds of weaknesses. And yes, from time to time, he

might fall and commit even a grave sin. But he also knows how to

bounce back.

  

            This is the real secret of becoming a saint—his capacity

to begin and begin again, never allowing himself to get discouraged by

his defects and sins, always quick to go back to God asking for

forgiveness and for more grace, and also fast to learn precious

lessons from his mistakes and sins.

  

            In fact, in a certain way, his defects, the temptations

around, and the sins he may commit would constitute as a strong urge

to go back to God as quickly as possible. He does not allow them to

separate him from his Father God.

  

            And on the part of God, we can be sure that he would be

filled with tremendous joy when we come back to him after we fall.

This is what we can conclude from those very consoling parables of the

lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son.

            Pope Francis, in his latest Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete

et exsultate, echoed the same truth. “Not everything a saint says is

completely faithful to the Gospel,” he said. “Not everything he or she

does is authentic or perfect. What we need to contemplate is the

totality of their life, their entire journey of growth in holiness,

the reflection of Jesus Christ that emerges when we grasp their

overall meaning as a person.” (22)

   

            On our part, we should try our best to be very faithful.

But it is also understood that our best efforts can sometimes fail us.

We can still commit errors and even grave ones. But there’s always

hope. God does not abandon us. He is willing to go through the

complicated process of becoming man and dying for us on the cross and

remaining with us for all time in the Church and with the sacraments

just to bring us back to him.

  

            This truth of faith should fill us with joy and

confidence, and instead of mainly worrying about how to avoid sin, we

should be more interested in doing what is good, what God wants us to

do and to accomplish in this world. True sanctity is not so much a

matter of being too concerned about sin as of doing the will of God.

Sanctity is more joy than worry, more action than caution, although

the latter have their role to play.

   

            Let us remember that God wants all men to be saved. (cfr.

1 Tim 2,4) He created us for that purpose, to be like him and to be

with him for all eternity. And even if we spoiled the original design

God had for us, he has repaired so well that we can say that we are

better off this time after sin than before sin.

  

            That’s because with our sin, God became man and gave us a

better deal of how to be with him in spite of our tendency to go

against him. Somehow our dignity as children of God enjoys a greater

status since by becoming man God shares our nature so we can more

intimately share with his divine nature.

  

            It goes without saying that we should not trivialize our

tendency to sin. We should fight it as much as we can. But that

reality should not undermine God’s will that he is bent on saving

us—of course, with our cooperation also.