Let’s complicate our life

WHETHER we like it or not, or when we try to do everything to avoid it, our life will always get complicated, one way or another, sooner or later. There are just too many things for us to manage, and many of them are beyond our control. We just have to be prepared for it. 

 In the life of Christ, the pattern of our humanity and savior of our damaged humanity, we can see very well how this reality of life’s complications can come about. He went around preaching and doing a lot of good, and all sorts of difficulties, challenges, requests, etc. hounded him. If this happened to him, we have no reason to think that our life would be exempted from complications. 

 One time, Christ started to preach to many people who followed him, and a centurion approached him with an urgent request. Could Christ come to the centurion’s house to cure his dying daughter. He readily went, and along the way, a woman secretly touched his garment, convinced that she would be cured of her ailment. (cfr. Mk 5,21-43) 

 Things like this happened to Christ, and also to his disciples who tried to be with him. It is said, for example, that Christ had to wake up early in the morning and go to a deserted place to do his prayer. And Christ sometimes would ask his disciples to rest a while, since with all the things they were doing with him, they hardly had time to eat. 

 Yes, our life, indeed, if it has to reflect the life of Christ, cannot help but get complicated. But as long as we keep our faith strong and continue to be close to Christ, we can always manage, and avoid making a big issue out of this predicament. We can even find fulfillment in it. 

 We should not be afraid when our life gets complicated. As long as we are with Christ, we even would be willing to complicate our life. I think that is the proper attitude to develop in ourselves. We should not just wait for our life to get complicated. We somehow should complicate by truly involving ourselves in the mission of Christ and in the lives of others. 

 Obviously, we should try our best to be properly prepared for this unavoidable condition in our life. Let’s prepare ourselves for this physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and morally. For this, we need to avail of all possible and appropriate means. 

 We certainly need to develop virtues, like order, fortitude, optimism, cheerfulness, prudence, etc. We have to avail of the spiritual means of prayer, sacrifice and recourse to the sacraments. Let’s always remember that we are always guided by some supernatural forces that can only come from God. That way, we would also be ready to tackle the strong and subtle infranatural forces that come from some evil spirits around. 

 It would be good to devise a variety of plans to address our different concerns. We should be making daily, weekly plans, etc., to guide us in all our needs, from the physical and the most material, to the moral, spiritual and our ultimate supernatural goal. 

 Obviously, we also have to learn how to be flexible, because no matter how much we plan, we would always encounter surprises and spoilers along the way. We have to learn how to be game in all this. The most important thing is that whatever happens, we should always go to Christ.

Bigger problem, stronger hope, greater grace

WE should always remember this comforting triad. Where we encounter big problems in life, let’s react with stronger hope, and expect some extraordinary grace, favor and mercy from God, our Father. 

 This truth of our faith is somehow dramatized in that gospel story where Christ was confronted with a man so possessed by a legion of devils that “no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.” (cfr. Mk 5,1-20) 

 That gospel story somehow demonstrates what can happen to us individually or collectively as a society. If we are not careful, we can allow the devil to enter and possess us. And things can get worse when, God forbid, a demonic infestation can occur. 

 We should always be wary of the devils and be ready to handle them properly. They exist. And their only purpose of their existence is to do evil, to go against God and to everyone and everything that God loves. They were originally good angels who rebelled against God upon their creation. 

 Being pure spirits and therefore are free and intelligent beings, the devils misused their intelligence and freedom by choosing to replace God upon their creation. That choice has plunged them, being pure spirits, into an irreversible eternal state of enmity against God and against everything else that comes from God and is still with God. 

 Many if not all the temptations that come our way originate or are being orchestrated by devils. The proper attitude we should have when temptations come is to reject these temptations immediately, never giving them a chance to advance in their plot by dialoguing with them, and to go to God immediately. 

 Let’s remember that when temptations come, it is because we have let down our guard. It means that our union with God has loosened, if not completely broken, often without even our noticing it. 

 Thus, when temptations come, we really should intensify our prayers and hope in God’s merciful providence, since only with God can we resist them. We should also submit our body to some severe discipline because when tempted the body easily falls and drags our spirit with it. 

 We have to reassure ourselves, based on what Christ has promised and has actually done for us, that there can be no crisis that is too big for the grace of God to handle. 

 We have to remember that nothing happens in this life without at least the knowledge and tolerance of God. And if God allows some really bad things to happen, it is because a greater good can always be derived from them. 

 We just have to put ourselves in God’s side to tackle whatever crisis plagues us. That is the real challenge we have to face. And just like what Christ did and continues to do to redeem us, we have to follow the formula he once spelled out: deny ourselves, carry the cross and then follow him. (cfr. Mt 16,24) 

 If we are willing to do that, then we can even gain a lot more than what we appear to lose and to suffer. In other words, we can say that the bigger, the more serious the problem is, the bigger, plentier and stronger also would the grace God will give us. So, let us just be game and do our part of the bargain. 

 It’s not easy, of course. But neither is it impossible. If we consider God’s abundant grace, even the impossible can be possible for us. 

Fighting against familiarity

THIS is a common danger against which we have to be duly guarded. It can happen to us anytime, especially when we already have lived a life of piety for a number of years. If we are not careful, this danger can creep in because we may not realize that our piety has been corrupted by complacency and routine. It’s a piety in appearance only, but not in substance. 

 “No prophet is accepted in his own native place.” (Lk 4,24) This was Christ’s indictment against the people of his own place who, instead of being amazed and thankful for having among them not only a very special person but the very son of God, found Christ too much for them, and were in fact scandalized by him. 

 This is what familiarity is all about and what it produces. As an adage would put it, familiarity breeds contempt. It is the state of getting too accustomed to God and to his goodness such that we would not feel the urge anymore to thank and praise him for everything that we have and enjoy, since all these things come from him. 

 Familiarity can come because we simply would let our senses, feelings and our other ways of purely human estimation to guide us, rather than our faith, and its necessary companions of hope and charity that should come with God’s grace for which we should always ask. 

 We have to be more aware of this danger of familiarity and install the necessary defenses against it. More than that, we have to aggressively cultivate the art of always being amazed at God and at all his works. That should be the proper state for us to be in. 

 We have to understand, though, that this abiding state of amazement that we should try to develop is not a matter simply of sensations. Of course, it would be good if we can always feel amazed and in awe. But given the limitations of our bodily organism, we cannot expect that to happen all the time. 

 For this amazement to happen, we should always feel the need to renew and purify our love for God and others. That’s simply because of the tension between our nature and our supernatural goal, not to mention our present wounded human condition that is prone to temptations and sin and to all kinds of weaknesses. We unavoidably have to contend with these conditions in our earthly life. 

 In other words, we have to learn how to live in the mysteries involved in the supernatural life of God in which we are meant to share, even while we are still here in this world. 

 The task we have is how to correspond to this tremendous reality of living our life within the whole mystery of God’s life. Many of us still think that we are quite by ourselves, and the decision to relate ourselves with God and others is purely optional. 

 No, sir. Our relationship with God, while an option—in fact, a fundamental option—is never optional, something we can feel quite free to have or not to have. We would be incomplete without God. 

 We need to be more aware of this marvelous truth. And from there, to start the lifelong journey of conforming our life to that of God, overcoming first our initial human awkwardness in the face of our supernatural goal, and then developing the virtues that little by little resemble us with God.