When we’d just be chasing after the wind

THIS happens when with all the excitement we put into our earthly activities, we fail to reach the ultimate end proper to us, and that is, to be with God, to do everything to show our love for him, and to give him glory. In other words, when we fail to follow what Christ once said: “Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.” (Jn 6,27) 

 We cannot deny that we are notorious for making ourselves, instead of God, as the goal of our whole life. We are prone to fall into self-indulgence against which we should declare an unrelenting war. Yes, this has always been a problem to us, and these days it is much more so. 

 With the many new wonderful things that can instantly give us convenience, comfort, pleasure and satisfaction, many of us are trapped into the very sticky web of distractions, obsessions, addictions and the many other forms of self-indulgence that feed on our weaknesses, like lust, pride, conceit, gluttony, unhinged curiosities, envy, etc., etc. 

 We just have to give a cursory look around to see how bad this problem is. Many people are just looking at their cellphones most of the time. There are reports saying that many young people often forget their meals and lose sleep because of what they do in the Internet. It’s clear they are terribly hooked there and it seems it’s now next to the impossible to get them out of there. 

 As a result, many duties and responsibilities are left unattended. Disorder and chaos are fast gaining ground as priorities are skewed. Superficiality has now become a mainstream lifestyle, reinforcing the trend toward consumerism, materialism and what Pope Francis refers to as the “throw-away culture” where ethical and moral considerations are ignored or even flouted, i.e., regarded with contempt. 

 We have to be wary of this danger of self-indulgence that is becoming widespread. There is a slippery slope to it. We should therefore be constantly guarded against it. For example, we can start going to the Internet for the legitimate purpose of getting information that we need. But along the way, we get distracted by something else that can appear to us as interesting. 

 We take a bite, and then another bite, until we fail to realize that we are already getting entangled and hooked. It is like being hijacked. We lose our sense of direction, and before we know it, we would already have forgotten why we went to the Internet in the first place. We would be trapped in a state of obsession and addiction that can be so strong that it can defy rationality and common sense. 

 To counter this strong bad tendency of ours, we should see to it that our strongest attraction should be God and no other. If we make God the source and cause of all our attractions, of all our pleasures, of what ultimately gives us perfect satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment, all the other things can attract us and give us joy in the proper way, always respecting our true dignity as persons and as children of God. 

 Otherwise, there is no other way but for us to have merely a fake kind of joy, pleasure and satisfaction that can only lead us to bigger dangers. We really have to train ourselves to make God and to make following his will and ways the constant source and cause of our attraction and joy.

Christ always looks after us

WE should just firm up our conviction about how Christ is always caring for us. His ways may be mysterious and can escape our notice, but we should not forget that there is no moment in our life when Christ would be absent or indifferent to our needs. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our faith in that gospel episode about the third appearance of Christ to his disciples after his resurrection. (cfr. Jn 21,1-19) At first, they did not realize it was Christ who was asking them something from the shore when they were fishing at sea. It took some time before they would finally recognize him. 

 In our life, we should be wary of our tendency to feel that we are just on our own, grappling with our own things and that Christ has hardly anything to do with us. We have to correct that understanding. Christ always cares for us and he is precisely in everything that we get involved in, giving us the proper direction, guidance and support. 

 We should always remember that Christ takes care of everything. And even from evil, he would know how to derive some good. With him, everything, including our failures and sins, would always work for the good. His wisdom, his omnipotence, his mercy, etc. would take care of all that. 

 The crucial thing to do is to be with Christ, which definitely will require some discipline from us. And so, even if especially at the beginning, we would find it hard, if not almost impossible to be with him, we just have to do what we can to achieve that ideal condition for us. In time, and with faith and our unrelenting effort, to be with Christ is not only achievable, but something that can become a stable state of life for us. Again, let’s remember that we are actually meant for that state of life. 

 We can be sure that on the part of Christ, everything is made available, so that whatever difficulty and problem we have in this life, we would know how to leverage them to our real and lasting advantage, and not just some false and passing advantage. 

 Obviously, we have to do our part. In fact, we have to exhaust all human means to resolve whatever difficulties and problems we have. But knowing that our best would never be enough, we should never forget that there is God, our Father, our Creator, who began something good in us and who will also be the one to finish, complete and perfect everything in us. (cfr. Phil 1,6) 

 We have to strengthen our conviction on this wonderful truth of our faith. We should not allow ourselves to be dominated by sadness, much less, despair over some weakness, mistakes, failures, blunders and sins that can mark our earthly sojourn. 

 While it’s true that our initial reaction to these negative things can unavoidably be one of sadness, let us not stay long there. We have to immediately recover our true dignity as children of God. Being a father, God would always understand and forgive us. 

 God will never give up on us. He will do everything to help and save us. As St. Paul would put it in his Letter to the Romans: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (8,32)

Training for eternal life

KNOWING that we are meant for eternal life with God in heaven, we should understand that our life here on earth is meant to train us for that ultimate goal of ours. It is also a testing ground to see if what God wants us to be for all eternity is also what we ourselves would want to be. 

 Of course, what God wants us to be is to be like him since we have been created in his image and likeness, meant to be share in very life and nature. And that means that, in the end, just as God is love itself, as shown in its fulness by Christ, we should try our best to incarnate and live that love which is all inclusive even as it continues to keep the exclusivity of truth. It’s also a love that oozes with mercy. 

 We obviously can only do so much, given our natural limitations, not to mention the wounded condition of our life that is always hounded by sin. But we just have to do what we can, taking things to the limit, never saying enough. Anyway, Christ has assured us of final victory as long as we stick with him all the way to the end, regardless of how the drama of our life plays out. 

 Let’s always remember these reassuring words of St. Paul: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1,6) We should just try our best to be more and more like Christ, even if our best can never be enough. 

 To be more and more like Christ, to be more and more like God can only mean to be more and more in love with God, to be more and more united with him. And in practical terms, it means to be more and more in love and united with everybody else, irrespective of how they are. That’s because to love God here on earth is also to love everybody else. 

 Said in another way, if we really want love to reign between God and us, all we have to do is to love our neighbor. In this we have these words of Christ himself: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven…For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” (Lk 6,36-38) 

 Thus, when Christ was asked what the greatest commandment was, he readily said it was to love God with everything that we have got, and without being asked what the second greatest commandment was, he volunteered to say it—that it was to love your neighbor as yourself. (cfr. Mt 22,36-40) 

 As we can see, loving God and loving others always go together. We cannot have one without the other. The immediate corollary we can derive from this consideration is that we do not have to wait for some special occasions, some special reasons or persons to show our love for God. 

 Every moment, every person, every situation, no matter how ordinary and plain they may be, is a moment to show our love for God. The moment we start to be nice to others, we are already starting to be nice with God, and thus loving him. 

 This is how we can effectively train ourselves for eternal life!