Total self-giving without expecting any return

IT’S the call Christ addresses to us when he told his disciples: “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relative or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Lk 14,12-14) 

 True generosity is attained when we completely gratuitously give ourselves to others, just like God who gives himself to us completely gratuitously. Never mind if our generosity is not reciprocated, which is unlikely since when we are generous with others the tendency is also for the others to be generous with us in their own way. 

 The crucial point in this business of generosity is the gratuitousness of our self-giving. This should be the attitude in our self-giving. It has to be done without counting the cost, without expecting any reward. We should not worry about anything, because God knows everything and gives us everything that we need. And he cannot be outdone in generosity. The more we give of ourselves, the more he will reward us. 

 We just have to do our self-giving very freely. As Christ himself told his apostles, “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Mt 10,8) And the first one to live by this principle is Christ himself. He gave himself freely to us, including his own life. He did not mind the sacrifices, the insults and mistreatment he underwent. 

 This is what true love is. It is a total self-giving. But the mysterious part of it is that it actually generates more love and self-giving in others. It inspires others to give themselves in the way of true love. That is why true love has its own reward. It has the dynamic of being repaid also with love. 

 We should always be encouraged to give ourselves to others gratuitously without strings attached, without conditions. Even if instead of being reciprocated properly and requited, our love is misunderstood and rejected, we just have to go on loving. The only reason for loving is because that is what true love is. It is this love that is the real essence of God, of whom we are his image and likeness. 

 This truth of our faith about gratuitous generosity in our self-giving is also amply dramatized in that lesson Christ gave regarding the unprofitable servant. (cfr Lk 17,7-10) “When you have done all you have been commanded,” Christ said, “say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what we were obliged to do.’” 

 Loving and serving cannot and should not be quantified in terms of cost and reward. It is above all these considerations. It’s a purely spiritual operation that should not be spoiled by giving it some material and temporal value. It’s where we can approximate, keep and build up that dignity of being the image and likeness of God and adopted children of his. It’s how we become God-like. 

 This is how God serves and gives himself to us, with complete gratuitousness. He even goes all the way of still loving and serving us even if we do not reciprocate his love properly. This is how we should serve and give ourselves to the others also!

Another proof God and man share the same life

THAT’S when Christ responded to those who asked him what the greatest commandment was. (cfr. Mk 12,28-34) After telling them that the greatest commandment was to love God with one’s whole might, he proceeded to tell them without being asked what the second greatest commandment was. And it was to love one’s neighbor as oneself. 

 In other words, loving God cannot be real unless one also loves his neighbor, which actually means to love everyone else. Thus, St. John in First Letter said: “If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (4,20) 

 We need to clearly see the link between God and neighbor who should be both the object of our love. We often take it for granted. While we may appear to be close to God because we pray, we profess our faith in him publicly, etc., it may turn out to be only a sham, because how we treat our neighbor, who actually can be anybody and everybody, belies our supposed closeness to God. 

 This is because how we treat others can actually show how we treat God. If we are indifferent to the others, we can actually say that we are also indifferent to God, even if our appearance may seem otherwise. If we hate someone, we can also say that we are hating God. 

 Why? Because if we truly are believers and lovers of God, then there’s no other way but also for us to truly be lovers of everyone else, no matter, how the others are. God loves everyone, even if not everyone may love him in return. 

 What we can draw from these considerations is that for us enter and share in the very life and nature of God, we have to learn to love everyone, as Christ himself commanded us: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 13,34) He even commanded us to love our enemies. (cfr. Mt 5,43) 

 This may sound like a very tall, if not, impossible order, but it’s clear that for us to share the very nature and life of God, as we are meant to do, we have to have the same love God in Christ has for everyone. 

 This will require a lot of effort and sacrifice, but we should never forget that we can only have that love if we ourselves are receptive and responsive to the enabling grace that God himself pours and shares with us. We only have that kind of love if we truly are with God. On the part of God, he is never stinting in sharing what he has with us. Again, things depend on how receptive and responsive we are to that grace. 

 We should just learn how to truly identify ourselves with God. This we can do if we, with faith, would just follow God’s will for us, as shown to us by Christ. We need to make acts of faith especially because our reason cannot fully fathom and understand the will and ways of God. 

 Said in another way, let’s make our reason to be animated first of all by faith rather than my its natural operation which we should neither give up. Our natural reason should follow what our supernatural faith would show us. 

 This is how we can share God’s very own life and nature and manage to love everyone which is the very essence of God.

November 1 and 2 reminders

THE month of November begins with the liturgical celebration of the Solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of All Souls. These celebrations remind us of the wonderful reality that our life here on earth is not just limited by our space-and-time existence, but has other much more important dimensions that we often take for granted. 

 To put it bluntly, these liturgical celebrations remind us that we are all called to be holy, because being a creature of God, created in God’s image and likeness and meant to participate in the very life of God, we really need to assume the very identity of God which is what holiness is all about. We have to be reminded always of who we really are and of how we can be consistent to that identity and dignity. 

 Yes, there is a basic and inalienable equality among all of us insofar as we are God’s creatures and children called to holiness. Regardless of our position and state in life, whether we are priests, religious men and women, or ordinary lay faithful, we have the same calling and purpose in life. 

 Corollary to this truth is that there is also a basic and inalienable quality of everything in the world to be an occasion and means for our sanctification. To be holy does not mean that we only spend time praying, going to church, availing of the sacraments, etc. 

 To be sure, prayer, the sacraments, the doctrine of our faith, obedience to the Church hierarchy are important, even indispensable, but these would hang on thin air if they are not supported and made as the goal and expression of a sanctified life that is consistent to the teachings and the spirit of God. 

 To be holy also means that we have to use our ordinary work, all the things of the world, like the sciences, arts, politics, technologies, etc., properly purified, and all the other circumstances that define our daily life as an occasion and means to look for God, then find, love and serve him. 

 There’s a need to cultivate a unity of life that is inspired by love of God and neighbor and oriented toward the definitive eternal life with God in heaven. We cannot divide our life in two disparate parts—one meant for holiness, and another meant only for some worldly affairs. 

 The November 1 and 2 celebrations also remind us of the glorious truth of our faith that we are meant to form a communion of saints that is meant for all of us, since we are all children of God, and the Christian meaning of earthly suffering and death that while sobering is also uplifting, since these serve for our purification and ultimate redemption. 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to get stuck to the here and now, and to be so immersed in the drama and game of our earthly life that we fail to realize there is a lot more than what we have here, what we do and say now, what we are at present. 

 We may create all sorts of problems and chaos in this life, all kinds of ugliness. But, hey, there is hope! Christ has redeemed us with his death! Sin and death have their sting removed. Let us learn to see beauty in all the chaos and ugliness of the present, and attain redemption in our seemingly hopeless predicament. 

 Let’s remember that Christ’s all-powerful and never-fading work of redemption that culminated on the cross, can take on anything that we say, do or are, whether it is something good or something bad.