When we find ourselves helpless

SITUATIONS like this can happen in our life. In fact, we have to expect them. With our many limitations and the varying conditions we are subject to, there surely will be times when we find ourselves helpless in spite of all the effort we do to find solutions to our problem. 

 In the gospel, there was this official who approached Christ to importune for help for his dead daughter. “My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.” (Mt 9,18) He must have been hoping against hope that something can still be done for his daughter. And he did the right thing. He approached Christ. 

 This is the lesson that we too should learn, especially when we find ourselves in similar situations. We should develop the instinct of going immediately to Christ. Let’s avoid rotting in sadness, lamentations, victim complex, etc. We know that what is impossible for us is always possible with Christ. What cannot anymore be solved by us can always be solved by Christ, if not here and now, then in the hereafter. 

 Thus, we need to strengthen our faith so we can be quick to entrust ourselves to the workings of the spiritual and supernatural realities that also govern our life. We have to remember that we are not ruled simply by biological laws or physical, chemical, social, political, economic laws. There is a higher law that governs us and that would enable us to transcend our human and earthly limitations. 

 This is the law of grace, a law that is spiritual and supernatural in nature. It is the law that enables us to go beyond our human limitations without, of course, compromising our humanity. It is the law that enables us to enter into the very life of God who created us to be his image and likeness. 

 We have to learn to feel at home with this particular condition of our earthly life. We have to acquire the relevant attitude and skills to be able to live with this condition. It is when we seem to reach our human and earthly limitations that we have to abandon ourselves to the more powerful and merciful dynamic of God’s providence over us. 

 We should always go to Christ. He always has the solutions to our problems, the answers to our questions. He always gives them, albeit not in the form we want, but always in a way that would be beneficial to us. 

 In all our affairs and situations in life, we should always go to Christ to ask for his help and guidance, and to trust his ways and his providence, even if the outcome of our prayers and petitions appears unanswered, if not, contradicted. 

 This should be the attitude to have. It’s an attitude that can only indicate our unconditional faith and love for God who is always in control of things, and at the same time can also leave us in peace and joy even at the worst of the possibilities. 

 We just have to remember that Christ never abandons us and is, in fact, all ready and prompt to come to our aid, albeit in ways that we may not realize, at first, just like what happened in that story of the two disciples who were on their way to Emmaus. (cfr. Lk 24,13-25) 

 We should not allow our feelings of sadness to be so dominant and pervasive that we shut off Christ’s many and often mysterious ways of helping us.

Synodality and today’s apostolate

“JESUS appointed seventy-two other disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, ‘The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so, ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals’”…(Lk 10,1-4) 

 So goes the gospel of the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, celebrated on July 3. It reminds us that we are all meant to be apostles of Christ, to be his ambassadors. That’s simply because we are meant to be like Christ, to be ‘another Christ,’ and so we share also in his redemptive mission which is a continuing affair as long as we are still in this world. 

 No wonder then that Christ would just choose his apostles seemingly at random. He would just pass by a certain place, and upon seeing someone, he would just say, “Come, follow me.” And wonder of wonders also, the person called would just follow him without question. In fact, it is said that the person called would leave everything behind (“relictis omnibus”). 

 We are all meant to be apostles of Christ with the lifelong concern for doing apostolate, taking advantage of all the occasions and situations in life to do so. Vatican II spells it out very clearly. “The Christian vocation is by its very nature a vocation to the apostolate.” (Apostolicam actuositatem, 2) So, anyone who wants to be truly consistent to his Christian identity should realize ever deeply that he is called to help others get closer to God. This is what apostolate is all about. 

 Given the state of affairs of the world today, we have to understand that while we always have to give special apostolic attention to the traditional mission lands which usually are far-away places with primitive cultures, we should not forget that today’s peripheries are the mainstream society that is drifting away from God and religion. 

 In this regard, it behooves us to truly immerse ourselves in the complexities of the lives of these new peripheries and new mission lands. We have to disabuse ourselves from the thought that to be missionaries, we have to be priests or nuns. Everyone, especially the laity, has to be a missionary. 

 Today’s missionaries should be in the world of business and politics, in the fields of the sciences, arts and technologies, in the academe, offices, streets and farms, in sports, fashion and recreation, etc. In other words, where the people are they should also be there, tackling with everyone else the spiritual and moral issues and challenges of the times, finding ways of sanctifying everything and leading everyone and the world to God. 

 They, of course, have to be properly trained and skilled in the ways of the spiritual and supernatural, on the one hand, and of the mundane and secular on the other. They have to learn to blend the sacred things in life and the earthly and temporal elements. 

 This means that they have to be truly spiritual men, so vitally identified with Christ that they can take on anything without getting scandalized by the complexities and the unavoidable dirt of today’s challenges. 

 Today, they have to learn the art of synodality, where there’s the effort to reach out to everyone in every level and sector of society, listening to each other, and moving together toward God, without confusing the distinctive character and mission of each one.

Be guarded against self-righteousness

GIVEN our strong tendency to fall into self-righteousness, everyday we should devise some kind of plan or strategy to protect ourselves from it. That effort that definitely requires a lot of sacrifice and self-denial, would always be worth it. 

 Self-righteousness is a danger most common among the so-called ‘good’ or ‘pious’ people. The descriptive words are in quotations since the goodness and piety of those afflicted with this vicious spiritual disease is only apparent, since it lacks the real substance of the real righteousness. 

 And that’s because their idea of goodness and piety, their idea of righteousness is not properly based or grounded, nor is it properly oriented. Instead of having God as principle and end of their life and actions, as shown and taught by Christ and actualized through the abiding action of the Holy Spirit, they only rely on their own ideas that can be developed through some complicated and attractive ideology and philosophy, or some tradition and culture that are not properly inspired. 

 This spiritual anomaly of self-righteousness can show itself in many ways, like being quick to judge, to brand, stereotype and condemn people, slow to understand others and to forgive, not wanting to be corrected, being highly opinionated and wanting to have the last word always, to dominate others, etc. It is notoriously impatient. 

 That’s why, we should never let go of our duty to be humble and to find ways to make humility always grow and deepen, because that’s the antidote to pride and conceit, the very virus of self-righteousness. All our thoughts and intentions, our words and deeds should have God as the beginning and end. Thus, we have to continually devise ways of keeping God always in mind, and of referring everything to him. 

 St. Paul, for example, keenly aware of his high dignity and responsibility as an apostle, highlighted the indispensability of humility. “My speech and my preaching was not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the showing of the Spirit and power.” (1 Cor 2,3) 

 And in another instance, he said that he preached Christ crucified, “a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” (cfr. 1 Cor 1,23), to emphasize the fact that the real righteousness that comes from God is never triumphalistic according to worldly standards. 

 That’s why St. Paul gloried in his weakness. “It’s when I’m weak that I am strong.” And, “If I must glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity.” (2 Cor 11,30) We should never think we are something, since everything good that we have comes from God. Let’s always remember that the only thing we can contribute on our own—without God—is evil, is sin. 

 We have to be most careful when we start to use our reasoning. Reason without faith and charity—in short, reason without God—is very dangerous. We can deftly use reason by citing all sorts of proofs, arguments, evidence, examples, doctrine and principles, stats, but if it is not inspired by faith and charity and delivered in humility, then it easily becomes a tool of pride, envy, hatred, revenge, deceit, etc. 

 Reason and truth should always be given in charity—“veritas in caritate,” as we have been reminded in an encyclical of Pope Benedict quoting St. Paul. It’s actually charity, the very essence of God (Deus caritas est), that gives reason and truth their true life and purpose, their living substance. 

 The real righteousness has charity, as shown by Christ, as its very soul!